#The existence of those 'inconsistencies' I mentioned and whether this will be touched upon in the story? Even down to the possible

[smartzelda]

Okay

Sonic Prime theory time

(Because I'm going through it right now)

Specifically I want to talk about my own answer to the question "How will the show end?"

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Thoughts/Analysis under the cut

Season 2 Spoilers

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So, as I see it, there are about three possible endings.

Ending 1: Goodbyes are said. The universe is reverted back to its state before the shattering and Sonic gets his original friends back. (May also come with sonic being the only one who remembers what happened, but I can't rule out the concept of his friends remembering anything as well)

Ending 2: Sonic comes to terms with the fact that he can't bring back the original Green Hill and his old friends as they were. The shatterverse continues as is. (This most likely constitutes in a bit of a bittersweet ending where everything continues as is, but Sonic swears not to forget what things were like before)

And Ending 3: Sonic gets to have his cake and eat it too (He manages to fix ghost hill and bring his original friends back while the new shatterspaces and his new friends/all the new characters also get to stay around)

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Originally, while being partial to option 3, I assumed option 1 would be most likely. After all, option 3 originally originated as my happy "everyone lives" idea. I liked (and still do) imagining the possibilities that would arise from the universe from Sonic Prime entering a Kingdom Hearts-like state (where either the characters can travel freely between worlds while still needing to be conscious of each shatterspace's order, or travel between them is nonexistent/extremely limited). While I liked the bittersweet nature/possibilities of option 2, I found that outcome to be more unlikely given the show's audience.

I'm not saying that shows that keep an audience of children in mind can never end bittersweetly or that it's never happened before. It's just more like I find it hard to see those involved in the show effectively rendering beloved characters as dead/gone forever and make Sonic move on while with "different versions" of said characters.

However, now I'm a bit more inclined to believe in version 3 (the "everybody lives" ending), and here's...my long winded way of saying why

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So, about where I changed my mind is when I realized that Sonic Prime...isn't a typical alternate dimensions/multiverse storyline, especially with what seems to be it's basic framework.

So, when Sonic shatters the paradox prism, all of his friends and Green Hill are shattered as well. So it stands to reason that 5 different facets of his friends became splintered between 5 different versions of green hill, right?

Wrong.

I've seen a few different claims on what's going on here (usually to explain the other versions of Sonic's friends and their personalities). One of the most prominent is that each of the Amys, Tails, Knuckles, what have you, are meant to represent different pieces of those characters (i.e. that Rusty Rose and Thorn Rose represent different parts of Amy Rose's personality), and thus each versions of a singular character make up the whole of the original one. This of course functions on the idea that there *are* five different worlds of which there five different alternatives of any given person (or at least of those caught in the original blast) and that they all (personality wise and/or objective wise) are different necessary pieces to make up the whole of said characters (should Sonic want his original friends back).

But the inconsistencies in this framework (for which most of this theory's merit hinges upon) start beginning in the very first episode of season 1 "Shattered".

After "The Shattering" Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik returns as The Chaos Council (five different versions of Robotnik from seemingly different points in a singular lifespan, who refer to each other by nicknames). Of course it would make sense if these 5 (the chaos council) all came together after conquering their respective shatterspaces, using New Yolk as a central headquarters; however, we soon learn that this is not the case. The council only begins to learn about the shatterspaces and more about the shard energy they posses later in season 1, and season 2 elaborates upon the state of (formerly) Green Hill during it's conquering (building upon what the audience can gather from Renegade and Rebel's testemony of the event). Specifically we note that the five conquered (formerly) Green Hill and built New Yolk together. Evidence of course suggests that the five came to be in the same shatterspace, even possibly at the same time. No matter how perfect it is that there are five of them (one for each shatterspace as they set out to conquer the shatterverse), they all originated in a single universe rather than being split up across five separate ones.

And speaking of there being five eggmen, why don't we move onto inconsistency two?

Outside of Eggman, there exists only three alternate versions of Sonic's friends (this includes Amy, Tails, Rouge, Knuckles, Big, and Froggy). The only alternates exist in New Yolk, Boscage Maze, and No Place. Otherwise, The Grim is devoid of all life and has a repetitive (but distinctly non Green Hill landscape), and "Ghost Hill" just contains...ideas or blueprints of Green Hill and Sonic's original friends. It's strange that the Eggmen would all originate in New Yolk while the rest are the only one of themselves in each given shatterspace, and stranger still that there would be five eggmen but only 3 of the rest, if we intend to follow the framework of this being a usual world shattered into multiverse story.

And so, there are two final inconsistencies.

The first is the idea that each of the alternates of Sonic's original friends (and Eggman) are just...pieces of the originals, that each piece represents a different goal or personality trait. I won't dig into peoples' complaints about the characterizations of the alternates in relation to the original characters, and another theory/analysis of mine (reasoning as to why each of the alternates in each shatterspace are the way that they are) is best left for another post. So for now, I hope you all settle on the fact that...the alternates aren't actually presented as separate facets of personalities or goals personified? There's no separation by "Oh this is is the impulsive Amy, and this is the loyal Amy, and this is the nature loving Amy" or "This is depressive Knuckles, and this is angry Knuckles, and this is hopeful Knuckles", or even "This Rouge who loves shiny gems more than life, and this is Rouge who gives her all to fight for her home, and this is Rouge who is a seductress" (please understand that this is just an example of what I'm talking about, not character analysis of Sonic's original pals). In fact, even after season 2's end there is still no mention (even from sonic's end) of the idea of them being pieces of his friends (and more to suggest that they are their own, whole, well rounded people). But, as I said, that's all I'll say about this until I get on that character analysis post.

The second inconsistency is Green Hill itself and (frankly) the mere *existence* of both Ghost Hill and The Grim. Like I previously mentioned, under the typical "multiverse x splintered universe/people" framework it would make sense that Green Hill would exist in each of them (especially given Sonic's fixation on it with it being his home, but again, Sonic's influence on the shatterspaces is an analysis post for another time) as well as his friends and Robotnik. Yet, there exists a shatterspace with nobody on it (and if we're going under the assumption that each version of Sonic's original friends are splintered upon each universe, needing each piece to be whole again, it would be tragic for one of those "pieces" to be dead before Sonic even arrives, wouldn't it?) and an embryonic shatterspace.

A shatterspace where no one and nothing exists, not even Green Hill. Sonic pinpoints the landmarks of Green Hill in each shatterspace (always the loop de loop and Hedgehog's pass, and sometimes Tails' lab), only to come across a shatterspace where...none of that seems to exist or ever have existed (and if so, there is no trace of it).

A shatterspace where nothing quite is yet. A shatterspace stuck in the stages of forming. A shatterspace that is...identical to Sonic's Green Hill and even contains his original friends?

Well, isn't that fascinating

It's almost as if the idea that Sonic's original friends and the new characters cannot possibly exist at the same time is a misdirection at absolute best and at worst–

Ah ah ah. We'll get back to that later. For now let's continue on.

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So, these "inconsistencies". What does the existence of them mean? Bad writing?

Well...I think not. Stories about multiverses with alternate versions of the same people or ones that depict the future outcomes of different choices are not new or hard to find examples of. The animated Spiderverse movie did it, Marvel did it, DC did it, the Invader Zim comics did it, Futurama did it. Heck, even the Archie Sonic comics did that in the 90s. The same can be said about stories that feature horrible accidents resulting in singular people split into multiples of themselves or multiple personalities, or even stories that feature physical representations of a characters motivations, emotions, personalites, or goals. There are *too* many examples to draw from for inconsistencies like this to be on accident. Heck, anyone right now could write a multiverse story about a person who shatters their world into five separate worlds and the people on them into five separate people, that each dwell in the five different worlds, and each represents a facet of the original world and the personalities/motivations of the original beings that lived on the original world, after a freak accident, to which said person may need to merge the pieces of the worlds and people to restore the original world and the original people who lived there (now that I think about it...isn't this kind of one of the plots of Yugioh Arc V😅😂 I haven't fully watched that anime, but...random thoughts, you know).

So all of these "inconsistencies" I think are conscious choices by the writers.

Conscious choices that are *meant* to make us realize that *something* isn't right or usual here.

This story does not run upon the framework one would originally assume (and one that plenty of people think it is running upon even now). That's what I believe the inconsistencies mean.

So what does this have to do with the possible ending of Sonic Prime?

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Carry forward our theme of picking the story apart from its assumed framework and analyzing what we see rather than what we initially assume or are told.

And let us begin with the season 2 finale before we backtrack.

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So, uh

That finale, eh?🥲

I rewatched it again myself just today, and (although I did see it in my first watchthrough) it hurts to watch the buildup to it. It shows in the way Shadow distrusts Nine from the moment Sonic mentions him. It shows in Sonic and Nine's first conversation together in The Grim. It shows in the way different people try to get Sonic to stop trusting Nine, in the way Shadow tells him point blank that they likely don't want the same thing. It shows when Nine meets the other alternate versions of Tails and meets his apparition. And it comes to fruition the moment Nine finishes working on the paradox prism (save one shard).

Shadow was working towards the goal of reverting everything back as it used to be before the shattering (after all, he doesn't consider Nine and the others "real")

Nine was working towards the goal of building a home—a new home for he and Sonic to be together in the Grim. (After all, he is real, he could care less about anyone that's not Sonic, and he doesn't believe it's even possible to ressurect what he believes to be gone)

And Sonic was working towards the goal of restoring Green Hill and bringing back his friends while the shatterverse yet exists.

Yes, you heard me right.

Sure, way back in season one his goal was just to make everything "normal" again, and in a way that’s still true (it's just his definition of normal has shifted from "everything should be exactly how it was" to "my old friends and home need to exist again"), but his perspectives on the shatterspaces and the new characters are different from how they were back then.

Back in season one he'd considered them just *basically* his old friends shifted to the left or like his old friends were buried inside them. It took him a little while to call them by their own names/titles rather than referring to them by the names of his original friends. He'd believed that Thorn would come around to friendship because she was like his Amy deep inside, and that Dread would return to captaining his crew because he had Knuckles' loyalty deep inside him.

But we begin to see this shift in real time, and the proof of it all is something Sonic tells Shadow in their first conversation about Nine.

Nine is real to him. They're all real.

And if Sonic didn't think they weren't, he would not have pushed Nine to take him back to New Yolk so he could save Renegade and Rebel and the people from being killed/beaten down. If they weren't growing on him, if he didn't still want them around, he would not have admitted that he wants Nine to meet Tails (or any of his original friends)

But again, full character analysis (even that of Sonic) is best left for another post (so I don't go off on too many tangents). So, I'll make my point.

I think Shadow and Nine each represent two opposing goals/outcomes (the outcome where everything reverts back to how it was originally versus the outcome where everything continues as is and Sonic has to move on) while Sonic is stuck between them (no longer quite as willing to erase all of his new friends and their realities, despite how desperately he wishes to have his home and original friends back). And what this framework (of Sonic being stuck between two different theoretical outcomes and ideology (whether he should try to get everything back just how it was or move on and start anew, possibly even forgetting what was before)) seems to lead up to is Sonic's inevitable choice.

Our original choice of Option 1 and Option 2. Will Sonic choose to restore everything to as it was before, or will Sonic choose to keep everything as is?

And yes, some people think he's already made his choice (whether he's come to terms with the possible fact that he may have to sacrifice one for the other is irrelevant). Some people are already planning the funerals of our new characters as Sonic can't bear to choose anything over his old home and friends.

But...really. Who says he has to make that choice? Is choosing between reverting everything "back to normal" or moving on as if his friends/home are dead and gone really his only choice, or is it what the characters (and some of us by extension) have just assumed?

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Let's go back to earlier Season 2.

While Season 1 primarily focuses on Sonic trying and failing to collect the Paradox Prism shards in hopes it might fix something, Season 2's focus (aided by Sonic now making acquaintances out of the once strangers of the shatterspaces) is primarily Sonic's race against the Chaos Council to gathering and assembling all five shards (so Sonic can restore his home and friends and thwart the council's plan to conquer the shatterverse).

But while in Season 1 Sonic's attempts to gather the shards often fail once he accidentally touches a shard,

In Season 2 Sonic's attempts fail because of the conscious choice he makes to protect his new friends over making off with the shards.

Season 2 Episode 2. "Battle in the Boscage". Sonic takes the Boscage shard in hopes of luring the Chaos Council and their eggforcers away from Thorn, Prim, and the Boscage gang, allowing their lives to be spared as he takes off with the shard. Not long after he begins running, Dr. Babble throws a tantrum, throwing around his own eggforcers as he continues to fight the Boscage gang and topple trees. Seeing that the council did not follow him, Sonic is given the choice to keep running and make it out with the prism without trouble, or to save his new friends. Upon choosing to come back for the Boscage gang, he saves them at the cost of the council stealing the Boscage shard from him.

Season 2 Episode 4. "No Way Out". Sonic and Dread (in the midst of the 3 way battle between Dread's crew, Sonic, and the Chaos Council) begin a one on one fight over the shard. Sonic, who sees Rusty Rose about to be ambushed by an eggforcer, gives up taking the shard from Dread in favor of saving her life instead.

And then again in Season 2 Episode 4 "No Way Out". The Chaos Council, who has Sonic surrounded, gives him an ultimatum. The lives of his friends, or the No Place shard.

But the other two examples mostly stand to show off to the audience Sonic's morals and that he cares about the wellbeing of his new friends (and are more subtle about it being a choice, given that in Boscage he didn't assume saving the gang would result in him losing the shard, and earlier in s2 ep4 he had technically gambled on still being able to get the shard back despite his choice). This choice is much more clear and on a grander scale. Mr. Dr. Eggman outright says "Hand over the shard, or say goodbye to your friends forever". This is not just a choice in the heat of the moment. This is "the shard, or the lives of your friends".

And this scene of "give us the ultimate power we want and we'll spare your friends" too is not an uncommon scene in media (the season finale of mlp fim s4 does come to mind here).

Except, once again, despite the numerous examples for the writing team to draw on, there is again an "inconsistency".

Because Sonic *doesn't* make a choice within the framework the council gives him. Unlike in the earlier examples, unlike in similar choices in media, the story does not go down the route of Sonic willingly and easily giving up the shard as some of his friends yell "No!"

Batten makes clear her stance that Sonic should hand the shard over for their lives, Rusty makes her stance clear that her life is expendable if it keeps the Chaos Council from taking over everything, and Nine motions at him to keep gathering the shards as in the plan, to not give it over.

And just as everyone thinks Sonic is going to give the shard over, he throws it, and he tells the council to get it themselves if they want it so bad.

Yes, in the end the council ends up with the shard again while Sonic's friends are safe, but he did not yield to the "this or that" choice. He was stuck in the middle of getting the shard (possibly necessary to save his home) or giving the shard to the council (and making his goal of restoring his original friends and home harder), and he took the middle road (a choice which seems to please even Nine).

Taking the middle road allows him more certainty that his friends (save Nine of course) will be saved and allows him to gamble with the possibility of also getting the shard back. It is a choice that gets him closer to what he wants on his own terms.

And the narrative rewards him for making this choice.

Because after choosing to protect his new friends, which are equally as real as the old ones, and choosing to take the middle path he's on rather than succumbing to the "this or that" choice he's been given, so happens season 2 episode 6 "Double Trouble" and episode 7 "Cracking Down".

Sonic is allowed to get all 3 shards (which includs the two he'd lost as a result of his choices) and save Nine, and the two travel with Shadow to ghost hill.

Keep this in mind. What could have been a season long endeavor of plan (or plans) to get the shards back from the council (even after Sonic let them go to protect his friends) became a successful escape plan in which he and Nine stole them away.

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So, back to the season 2 finale and beyond.

Just like with Sonic's ultimatum in Season 2 Episode 4 "No Way Out", Sonic is idealogically placed between Shadow (who is distrustful of Nine and assumes Sonic is trying to revert everything to as it was before with him) and Nine (who doesn't share Shadow's goal and assumes Sonic is on board with his goal to turn The Grim into a new home for the both of them).

(Perhaps Sonic, Shadow, and Nine's problems with assuming one of the other is on the same page as them would be another good essay topic, or perhaps it would function as a small piece of the analysis topic on why Season 2 ends the way it does)

But Sonic...doesn't get to make a choice. The shard is almost finished, but it’s incomplete still, and Nine takes it with him. Shadow isn't even in the room to exert his opinion as before. The scene is well, frankly, filled with miscommunication on the same scale as Nine and Sonic's first conversation in the Grim, because they both get something different out of it.

But I want to make my view clear. Sonic is still fundamentally in the middle of the two goals I mentioned. He is *still* stuck between Shadow and Nine (the difference is just that Nine thinks Sonic shares Shadow's goals, and Shadow most likely thinks Sonic shares Shadow's goals, and Sonic just...wants everything to work out fine for everyone). And I think Sonic will eventually be raised the outright choice or ultimatum (or at the very least, these assumed outcomes will come back for him to wonder over).

In Season 3, we will most likely see major parties fighting over the paradox prism (the council, Nine, etc).

I believe it's possible that Nine (because he's more attached to Sonic possibly than he even believes, and because he'd *still* made plans with Sonic after S1, even after he had every right to feel left behind and betrayed by him) may attempt to use this power not only to transform the Grim into his home, but to bring Sonic to his side. Likewise, as with the miscommunication that began Sonic and Shadow's fight in S2 Ep1 in Ghost Hill, I think it's possible we could see a similar fallout from the s2 finale with Sonic and Shadow (because I believe Sonic will make it clear that he believes his new friends' lives can be preserved), and I can see Shadow also trying to get Sonic to take his side (because he doesn't understand what there is to be attached to).

And I think when Sonic is raised this ultimatum (save Nine and the shatterverse or save Green Hill and his original friends), I think he will make his own choice.

The idea that he even *has* to make one of those two choices is a red herring.

For what other than speculation suggests there is no middle road?

I mean, the fact that for a moment Ghost Hill becomes Green Hill, Sonic's old friends begin to exist in the shatterverse while the Chaos Council and Nine work unperturbed show us that perhaps Sonic *can* have his cake and eat it too.

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Tl;dr: Sonic Prime isn't a typical multiverse x shattered universe story. The narrative is building up to an eventual choice Sonic will seemingly have to make between his old reality and his new reality as it pits him between Shadow and Nine's respective goals. However, the choice itself is a red herring, as I believe Sonic will make a choice on his own terms (the choice to allow his old friends and home to coexist with his new friends and their homes). I think this story can plausibly end with an "everybody lives" ending.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[your-brilliant-lady-m]

Part 2 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Kwami

Kwamis are a fun concept and one of the main draws of the series. They make sense story-wise because, firstly, our characters need some support system. And since a lot of conflicts are centred around secret identities, characters should be able to discuss their double life with someone. As magical beings they could also be used to expand the lore, introduce new concepts and drive forward both the plot and character development. It doesn't always happen but Kwamis are a good idea. Some people who write AU's think that Kwamis are redundant, but I have to disagree.

Origins and nature

Where do Kwamis come from? What are they? It's never explained. Oh wait, it was explained in a comic people can accidentally find. You decide to explain the origins and nature of magical beings who are one of the key elements in your magic system and worldbuilding IN A SIDE COMIC, which has zero effect on your main story. Sounds legit.

Here it is.

So, Kwamis are abstract creatures. They can become tangible and interact with the world because of the miraculous jewels. Essentially, each Miraculous acts as an anchor to the material world for Kwami. They existed since the beginning of time and were invisible observers of the universe. Until they settled on Earth and observed how humanity came to be. This is where things get interesting.

Kwamis are the embodiment of abstract concepts. But, some abstract concepts were created by people (like everything mentioned in the comic: beauty, math, love, etc).

Kwamis wanted to help humans. And then, a human, who couldn't see, hear or touch a Kwami creates miraculous jewels. And now these beings can interact with the world, use their powers and grant them to humans. Yet, they are completely under control of their holder. I'll discuss it later, but why did Kwamis accept this deal? They are practically enslaved. At the same time they care about people and generally love humanity.

According to the wiki Kwamis grant powers because of "the privilege of having the ability to be perceived by mortals". What? Did I read that right? Kwamis agreed to be enslaved and used as a power source, because they wanted to interact with material world. That's it, guys, end of the story.

We also know these things about nature and abilities of Kwamis from the show:

1) need food, but only to provide the power for the holder;

2) can't phase through precious metals (Chloe's bracelet in "Rogercop"), their own miraculous and humans;

3) they can control if they phase through things or not – meaning that if they want to, they can (this way Tikki can stay in Marinette’s purse without much trouble and Plagg sleeps on Adrien’s pillow);

4) they can perform magic without a holder but they don’t control it very well, there are certain types of things that they can’t do without a holder;

5) they are immortal but can get sick for some reason, a non-magical reason mind you;

6) technology can't detect them in any way, you can't film, photograph or record their voices (writers establish this many times, but promptly forget all about their own rules in "Optigami", where Marinette talks with Kwamis over the phone without any problems).

If I missed something important, then let me know.

Look, the questions related to origins and motivations of Kwamis might not be very prominent in your story right now, but you must answer them in case you might need to involve these facts in the plot down the line. It's important to avoid contradictions in the serialised story with liquid plot, that can't be set in stone. It's a made up world for the sake of everything sacred! You can make up explanations and rules, of course as long as they don't contradict common sense.

Plausible ideas for origins and nature of Kwamis:

1) Kwamis are immortal spirits, whom humans accidentally summoned and bound with spells to Miraculous stones. They remember their existence before this. This version doesn't really explain their desire to serve people and love for humanity, however. It would be more logical for Kwamis to resent people for enslaving them. It doesn't explain how humans could create those spells and Miraculous stones either.

2) Kwamis are physical manifestations of abstract concepts who existed simply as fragments of matter for a very long time without sentience, until they were accidentally summoned through the Miraculous stones and bound by humans to serve them. Kwamis do not remember their existence before Miraculous. In this version Kwamis serve humans and love them because they have never known a different kind of existence. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide any explanation on the creation of Miraculous and spells.

3) Kwamis are gods, who created the universe with all its elements and concepts including humanity (similar to Valar and Maiar in Tolkien's Legendarium). They wanted to help their creations but discovered that their power was too wild and unpredictable for that. So, Kwamis decided to give up their free will and magical independence to help humanity. Together they created Miraculous stones for humans to use and sealed themselves inside. Kwamis as gods were abstract concepts, who didn't have a body. The act of sealing their power in the Miraculous gave them an opportunity to interact with outside world (an anchor) and each Kwami chose an small animal form (because humans easily formed bonds with animals, had animal companions (pets), small animals look non-threatening and familiar). Kwamis intentionally choose certain animal forms to suit the human symbolism. Humans later used magic that Kwamis discovered for them to place spells upon small gods (spells related to identity protection and so on). This version answers most questions, but if Kwamis are gods then powers they grant to people seem to be rather small.

Feel free to add more. I would be interested to hear your ideas.

Identity Protection

In "Origins" we learn that Wayzz can sense the aura of Butterfly Miraculous, a negative aura of activated Butterfly Miraculous, to be more precise. And yet, Tikki and Plagg are genuinely surprised to discover the identities of their holders in "Dark Owl". There are several things wrong with that.

Can Kwamis sense each other's presence? They shouldn't be able to do this to protect the identities of their holders. On the other hand, they are ancient spirits. So, their inability to sense each other seems weird. Unless it's the same situation as with the spell that does not allow them to speak the name of their holder aloud.

But if they can sense each other like Wayzz did, then it means that Plagg and Nooroo were living in the same house for over a year and nothing happened. I mean, Plagg could have just come upstairs, take off the brooch from Gabriel, while he is asleep and return it back to Fu.

This question lies right here, on the surface. And that's only one massive and very obvious plothole. How to fix it? Establish that Kwami can't sense each other for identity protection. In "Origins" Fu meditates on his balcony and Wayzz sees a charged Akuma flying by. That's how they discover that Butterfly is in Paris and the Miraculous is in the wrong hands. Perhaps, Gabriel akumatizes someone for the first time to survey the surroundings and general public is not aware of this. This works better in the narrative, giving Fu time to select holders for Ladybug and Black Cat. It also establishes whether Hawkmoth can remove the Akuma from someone without Ladybug and discharge it. Maybe it depends on the circumstances (sometimes he can, but if this person was akumatized many times or their emotions are too strong and their mind doesn't want to let Akuma go then Hawkmoth can't pull the butterfly out with his magic). This scenario allows for Volpina to happen on "Heroes' Day". Silly recurring Akumas like Gigantitan and Mr. Pigeon could still happen. In this case Gabriel didn't want to akumatize the guy more than 70 times on purpose. It just keeps happening against his better judgement because evil butterflies are automatically attracted to Mr. Ramier. This way repeated attacks of Mr. Pigeon annoy Hawkmoth just as much as they do the heroic duo of Paris (I did not sign up for this Nathalie!).

Let's come back to the spell mentioned earlier for a moment. Kwamis can't say the name of their current holder out loud, but apparently, they can exploit a loophole in the spell by confirming the identity of their holder in another way. The spell doesn't work with other holders. Kwami can say the names of other holders if they know their identity. That being said, can the holder order the Kwami to tell them the identities of other heroes if they know them?

Kwamis know how each Miraculous looks with or without camouflage. Can the holder order the Kwami to tell them how each Miraculous looks in disguise (I liked that Grimoire doesn't have pictures of camouflage for identity protection)? Guardians can recognise Miraculous in any mode (Su Han). Did Fu teach Marinette this? Does she know how each Miraculous looks like unactivated?

Oh! Since we are discussing camouflage, let's take a moment to appreciate the Mother Of All Plotholes. Plagg didn't recognise Peacock because of the plot.

Relationship with Holder

I absolutely loved the idea that Kwamis must obey their holder introduced in "Sandboy". This concept opens tons of plot opportunities. It's such a great idea that makes sense, has potential, can create conflict. Why, oh, why didn't writers develop it more?

Like, it was so good. It can be a great push for character development. This concept resolves so many existing inconsistencies within the plot. It's mind-blowing.

Why can't Nooroo simply leave Gabriel, so that he wouldn't be able to transform? Because Gabriel bound him with Miraculous to always stay near.

In "Sandboy" Tikki asks Marinette's permission before going to the meeting. Plagg lies to Adrien instead. This implies that usually Plagg's holders weren't kind to him or feared his power (Su Han's remark in "Furious Fu"). Perhaps, his holders were taught to keep the Kwami of destruction under constant control. So, Plagg in turn has learned not to ask, because if he doesn't ask permission then his holder can't deny him freedom with magic.

Can Kwami lie to their holder? Maybe they can't lie to their holder about their nature, origins and powers and other Miraculous (but Kwamis can't reveal the location of Miracle Box, Guardian's identity and can't confirm identities of other holders known to them in any way). Kwami would be forced to speak even if they don't want to. That's why Nooroo told Gabriel everything about the abilities of the Butterfly Miraculous and the wish secret of Ladybug and Black Cat.

But Kwamis can lie to their holder according to Plagg in "Sandboy". If Kwamis can lie about everything (including powers) then Nooroo didn't have any reason to be honest with Gabriel way back in "Origins".

Speaking of Gabriel and Nooroo. Can Kwamis harm their holder? Maybe doing so would harm the Kwami as well. Can they do it only when the holder is not wearing the Miraculous? Can Kwami take their Miraculous from their holder? Will they disappear if they try to do so? It seems like Kwami disappears only when the holder takes off the Miraculous with the intention of renouncing power, the words "I renounce you" are not necessary.

Other Kwamis can take the Miraculous from people if it's not their own (Wayzz in "Feast"). But what if it wasn't possible. Imagine what could happen if it's not possible to take the Miraculous by force from the transformed or untransformed hero. Just like Lady WiFi couldn't remove Ladybug's mask. A person has to willingly give up the Miraculous. Only in this case, it's possible to take it. For example, somewhere around the middle of season 3 Hawkmoth could have trapped Ladybug and Chat Noir and cut off any escape routes. His Akuma tries to take both Miraculous, but they don't budge. Then afterwards, every Akuma tries to manipulate the heroes using hostages, illusions or mind control. It's hard to say whether this version will be better than canon, but it's a fascinating theory.

You can use the idea of obedience to create more situations contrasting the relationship of Plagg and Adrien, Gabriel and Nooroo. I liked how canon created a storyline about Plagg learning to control his powers without a holder and Adrien helping him. However, why would you stop here? Give us some flashbacks about Plagg's previous holders, tell us what kind of people they were. Expand the lore and add some character development for Plagg and Adrien. The same thing goes for Marinette. What kind of battles did they have in the past? What kind of people past holders were? Did Ladybug and Black Cat heroes always get along well? Were they allies or enemies? Were they always lovers?

Give us more information about Butterfly and Peacock holders. Perhaps Nooroo has dreams about his past holders who were good people. Show us what kind of things a Butterfly holder with good intentions can do. Tell us more about Duusu and her past holders, sprinkle in a few bits of info about Emilie and Duusu's relationship, just a few vague hints to preserve the mystery. You have a lot of screentime each season and instead of doing filler episodes dedicated to love drama, you can use them for developing minor characters, relationships between them and lore.

[bronyinabottle]

MY LITTLE PONY: A NEW GENERATION (G5 Movie) THOUGHTS

It’s finally here. The beginning of Generation 5. Though before I get into the movie in some detail I’m going to reiterate one more time what G5 means for my content and a non-spoilery summary of the movie.

Again, I will say that the movie nor will the G5 series coming later have much of an effect at all on any of my blogs. The revelation in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear that life itself is also magic means that a world that implied to have no magic for years would mean the extinction of all life (Perhaps resulting in the wasteland we saw in the Season 5 finale). There may be something I’ll probably do at some point on a certain different blog. But even then, that may likely be a one-time thing and probably come around the time the series is starting to air.

That said, just because I’m continuing with mainly G4 content doesn’t mean I disapprove of G5. In fact, my non-spoilers thoughts on the movie is I think it is a good start for this new generation. There are questions I have that I’m not sure will be answered (Though many of those questions are the same ones I had in my Trailer/Preliminary thoughts) quickly enough. But the movie is structured well enough, in fact it’s probably a better movie as a whole compared to any of the movies G4 had (The 2017 movie, Rainbow Roadtrip, and all 4 Equestria Girls movies). As the 2017 movie was fun, but it jumped around a lot, sometimes scenes transitioning too fast. And while Rainbow Roadtrip may have been this on purpose, the entirely slice-of-life story taking up a long length… made it something of a less interesting plot to follow. It feels like some of that special could of been cut to at least a two-parter length and keep the same beats they hit. And while i have a soft spot for the 3rd and 4th Equestria Girls movies, I’ll always say a full-length pony adventure feels better suited for what I want to see out of MLP then spin-off movies with high school movie cliches and weird pony/human world shenanigans.

So movie-wise I’m not a G4 purist. It’ll take some time to see how Gen 5 compares to Friendship is Magic when we get to the series. As I feel it’d take a lot for it to surpass G4 in my mind. But I’m going to try to be as fair as possible and judge on it’s own merits. The implied connection to G4 by referring to G4 being ancient Equestria is going to naturally get the staff and hasbro pressured by fans to tell us what happened in-between the generations. Because that’s the trap they put the writers in when they made it so they want to try to say it’s in the same universe. That’s the double-edged sword Hasbro chose to have, trying to appease the G4 fanbase and keep at least some of them around. But at the cost of questions both nitpicky (Such as character design being inconsistent) or actual honest questions that need to be known (Why did magic disappear, and what happened to the Alicorns) for some of us to truly see this as the same Equestria.

After the break, I’ll have more spoilery thoughts

Even for a brief moment, it was nice seeing the Mane 6 and 2D animation. The former because of course those are the ponies many of us that saw all of G4 loved. And the latter, because while the animation wasn’t bad in this movie. I’m one of those who’d prefer to have 2D animation in an animated film. As in most cases aside from Pixar, it’s just a strong preference of mine. If this had the animation of the 2017 MLP movie but otherwise everything else was generally the same here, I feel that would of have been great.

I wish they didn’t have to have Sunny’s dad die off-screen, as he seems like he could of been a compelling character. And not to mention if perhaps he has any connection the “ancient” days in any fashion. But *sigh* I get it, it’s an old trope where part of the character’s offscreen growth is not having their parent(/s) around.

On a side note there’s quite a few times during the beginning of the movie that somewhat foreshadow what happens to Sunny later. 3 times where she had a fake horn and wings on her. Once in the flashback, then 2 separate times when she’s doing her protest where she has her own costumed wings and horn. As well as the helmet and mechanical wings.

Also, there’s no way around it. Some of the discussions this movie are going to get quite political. (Namely one part of Sunny’s song that could be seen as having a double meaning of a jab at Trumpsts regarding “Building your wall”) From the very premise in the early times, we know that the inspiration for the story was last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. Which honestly, I do support the message they’re going for. Having an anti-racism message to tell kids from the very beginning and making a focus on it is important when in G4 it only got briefly touched upon in Bridle Gossip and the Heath’s Warming Eve play. Although it certainly rose up to some form of prominence with Season 8 and onward. Still, while you can argue if G4 executed the anti-racism message well. it does come with something of a problem that the series finale left Equestria in the least divided it’s ever been.

And personally, I feel it’s a terrible interpretation of time to say “Well, it’s a realistic take. Racism has existed for years in our world. Same should go for the ponies” and while yes, racism is still rampant in today’s world. That said, that ignores that if we went from The Last Problem to the start of G5. There’s a huge difference between our world and Equestria. There is no ancient civilization that we look at like “Yeah, those were the golden days of world peace” when normally the “Golden age” was reserved for the high classes of Ancient Greece or Rome. It was most decidedly not perfect, with slavery rampant and wars for the sake of expanding an empire. While if you look at The Last Problem’s Equestria, you not only have peace between the three main types of ponies. But you literally have non-pony citizens in Equestria. You can see a dragon handing off a flower to a pony which can imply cross-species romantic relations. With the Friendship school still going strong, and was the reason that the world was saved in The Ending of the End. While perhaps it may be too glowing to say that future is perfect for everyone even in-universe. It’s certainly a hell of a lot better outlook then comparing to how we view even the so called Golden age of ancient civilizations. The Last Problem’s Equestria implies it looks to ally with every country outside of Equestria, not conquer them.

So it should still be a valid question on just how this world collapses to the point it gets to where G5 is at the start. I at least assume that it’s not the fault at all of any of the Mane 6 nor Twilight. Or at least I hope it isn’t, as I’d rather the MLP fanbase not have to deal with a The Last Jedi Luke Skywalker situation. (Where after the joyful end of the original trilogy, things go wrong as Luke almost murders the son of one of his best friends and his sister despite trying to hard and succeeding at redeeming his father who at that point in the canon was a galaxy-wide known ruthless mass-murderer.) I assume we’re at a point where everyone of the Mane 6 sans maybe Twilight are presumed dead. And even in Twilight’s case, there’s a chance that G5 decides to say that G4 overestimated the whole Alicorn immortality thing. Though I wouldn’t put it past Hasbro to have some event where the Mane 5 of G5 meet the Mane 6 in some special event whether that’s a a Season finale or a sequel movie/special. Where either the Mane 6 return in a limbo situation similar to the Pillars at the end of Season 7 or Time travel gets involved. They may even string us along on answering just what in the heck happened until they involve a meet-up with the Mane 6 in that way. Though I hope they don’t, I’d really like the beginning of the series (Or I guess this supposed special coming up in Spring supposedly?) starts to answer some questions. G5 should get a chance to stand on it’s own, but I hope the writers are actually well aware there will be so many questions people have and address them in the show. A cynical part of me feels like they’re likely to string us along until at least the Season 1 finale.

Onto the characters for a bit. I think Izzy Moonbow was absolutely the most stand-out character in the whole movie. She was energetic, funny, and aside from “The pegasi are bad news” she along with Zipp and Sunny were the most averse to the way the world was. She was already the most popular due to the tennis ball memes. But now it feels like she legit stands on her own and most certainly deserves to be the most popular character of G5 thus far. Behind her in a bit of a surprise to me was Zipp, who I thought would be mainly a Rainbow Dash-expy. Though she really helps out Izzy and Sunny in Zephyr Heights. Despite having Twilight be my favorite pony from the very beginning of G4 all the way to the end, I didn’t feel as strongly about Sunny for some reason. So she’s in the middle of the pack, she could grow on me later. I just don’t know if I click with her as much as I did with Twilight. As for the last two, while I don’t hate either of them. Either one could be the lowest of the 5 for one reason or another. Pipp (Although I will say she's probably my favorite character design out of the 5) feels like she doesn’t do a whole lot in the movie and it takes until she’s forced to be an outlaw because the other choice was to get imprisoned like her mother was. So she may come off as quite pretentious, though it’s arguable Rarity was the same way early in G4. But she definitely grew later. Could be the same case for Pipp. And as for Hitch, he has shining moments in the film. But what might hurt him is the fact he was such a bad friend to Sunny up until the campfire scene. “I’m the last real friend you have. You really want to lose me too?” is not a healthy friendship. Hitch may have been Sunny’s friend the longest, but it definitely feels like Izzy connected immediately. I don’t know if this show will get into shipping any of the main characters between each other mid-show, but if they do. I hope it’s between Izzy and Sunny currently, cause Hitch and Sunny just gives bad vibes even with Hitch getting better later.

None of the songs I felt were particularly too special. Though I think the closest was Sprout’s “Danger, Danger” song that has similarities to Smells Like Teen Spirit in some parts of the song since I tend towards more rock/metal-esque music.

I touched upon it earlier, but there’s perhaps a stand-out reason for why the G5 movie outdid the 2017 MLP Movie. They have the typical “Our heroic group splits after a sad moment before coming together again for the climatic good end” in Sunny seeing that that the two crystals don’t instantly bring magic back, and when Twilight left the group after an argument that happened with Twilight trying to take a pearl. They perform the same purpose in the movie. But the crystals not working, crushing Sunny’s hope for a little while works better into the story. Where as Twilight’s part frustratingly brought the sea pony scene to an end too quickly and/or doesn’t feel right of Twilight to have done that. It felt forced in the 2017 movie, but works out in the G5 movie. Especially since a part of it is that it’s not the crystals themselves capable of bringing magic back. But it’s the journey going after the crystals that brings the ponies themselves their magic back.

Just a small note on dictator Sprout, he tries to cause a war. Though admittedly the film seems to treat him as a joke the entire time despite his seriously evil ambitions. With the only repercussions is he gets a wishy-washy answer on if he was a good sheriff from his mom. I don’t quite know how I feel about that yet, but I wonder what they’ll have in mind for Sprout given his actions. He and his mom are the only ones that feel like a true antagonist. Though they seem to be ok with things fast when the magic comes back.

But anyway on to the ending, we see that Sunny becomes an Alicorn. Which I guess with no other real Alicorns around, I guess it makes sense to alicornify her since she’s the real leader behind what united the leaders of each type of pony again. Though there is of course this weird thing where her horn and wings don’t seem like as much a part of her body compared to very obvious connected wings on Twilight when she got hers. Sunny keeps her horn and wings to the end of the movie, and has colored streaks in her hair. Though I do wonder if that;s truly permanent. If it is permanent, I suppose at least they got to have a headstart and have it established at the end of the introductory movie rather then have it shock people at the end of a shortened 3rd season. I still feel like Twilight had well earned her alicornhood considering that besides what she did in the series. She has a whole childhood and time as a teenager learning under Celestia. Which had to mean something, and I’m not sure Celestia just leaving her to live the rest of her days with her friends in ponyville was that. Sunny has no doubt been trying countless time to try to spread friendship throughout her life even after the tragedy of her father’s passing. So there’s no doubt she’s been through a lot, and may indeed be worthy of being an Alicorn at this point. Though in terms of screentime before Alicornhood it's definitely a lot less then Twilight had. And it is at least nice to see that it is possible for non-unicorns to become one. (The only case of that we sort of got was a children's book that may or may not be canon that implied Cadence was a pegasus before she ascended)

Though you have to wonder if the visual differences such as Sunny’s alicorn horn and wings, the cutie mark only on one side (Yes I know that’s how it was normally in the MLP generations before G4. But a distinct visual difference between shows is still noticeable even if the context of G4’s cutie marks on both sides of the flank was about it being easier on the puppets for Flash), and how animals can have wings or weird round shapes such as those bunnies when G4 has normal looking animals. There’s enough striking visual differences for any nitpicky G4 to say “This isn’t the same Equestria”. And if someone tries to say maybe some sort of evolution happened. That’s still trying to put a little too much real world logic on this fantasy world. And evolution tends to take millions of years to have such dramatic changes. Not 1000 years or so, there should still be normal looking animals at this point and time. And these small details are probably going to be the things most ignored but nonetheless can build a case that this isn’t the same Equestria. Even if they touch on the important questions like how magic disappeared and what happened to the Mane 6, there will be details they make different that will add to the case that this is it’s own universe if it doesn’t quite matchup with what was remembered about G4. There will be fans who will be that nitpicky to call G5 out of continuity for small details like that. That is again the trap they put themselves in when they decided to try to say it’s the same Equestria.

All-in-all though, I think that’s at least a good enough chunk about my thoughts on the movie to end off here. If there’s something I missed or something from the movie you’d like me to give a particular opinion about or elaborate on something feel free to ask me here. G5 is indeed off to a good start, just I will be along the many hoping some questions get answered sooner then later. And I’m not sure I’m confident in getting anywhere until a Season finale or a 2nd movie. And it’ll be a year before the series starts proper (Though again I guess there’s a 44 minute special coming in Spring to try to hold us over). But I could definitely see G5 finding it's own following, now there's just the inevitable clashes between some of the more vocal fans of each generation bickering at eachother. But hoping there will be enough that take the movie's lessons on divisiveness to heart and be able to enjoy both even if there may be preferences.

[kingandfireheart]

Mating Bonds: a mostly neutral analysis of the bonds in ACOTAR universe

I know everyone is like SECRET AZRIEL MATING BOND, but isn’t the whole point of the mating bond in non-Maeve situations supposed to be that once it snaps, the instincts takeover and it’s hard to ignore, or miss? In doing this analysis, I noticed some trends with mating bond, but mostly realized that I have a lot more questions than answers when it comes to how these bonds actually work in practice. My musings are below:

[Since TOG is a different universe and Rowaelin's mating bond is complicated because of Maeve's foul play, the coexistent Carranam bond, and the blood oath, this analysis does not include any discussion of their bond, and is limited to the bonds discussed in ACOTAR. ]

How the bond choses a couple?

The concept of the bond is a bit nebulous. Rhys hypothesizes that the mating bond is the result of guesswork, possibly related to power, offspring, or a soul-bond, but we don't really know how accurate that is.

The power theory makes sense with the bonds we know exist, if the Cauldron is able to predict the power the Archeron sisters have after being Made. While we have evidence that Nesta and Feyre are mated to Cassian and Rhys prior to being Made, they don't gain that power until they are Made. All of the mated pairs we know are incredibly powerful (either high lords, a high lord's heir, and Cassian, and three Archeron sisters, Rhys and Tamlin's moms, and Vivianne).

The offspring theory, makes significantly less sense, unless we assume that the Cauldron/Mother/whoever decides these things is all-knowing. Clearly, Rhys's parent's mating resulted in the most powerful high lord. However, with same-sex mates, this theory immediately fails. Even if the offspring theory for some reason didn't apply to same-sex couple, or couples that were otherwise unable to procreate, it still doesn't work for the Illyrian Male + High Fae Female bonds, which would likely lead to death, unless the Cauldron was able to predict the changes Nesta makes to herself and Feyre. Any offspring of the Made Archeron sisters would be incredibly powerful, if they were able to survive childbirth.

The soul-bonded theory has failed with Rhys and Tamlin's parents, has succeeded with Feysand, Nessian, and Kallias x Vivianne, but the jury is still out on Elain and Lucien.

Even though the rationale of the bond isn't necessarily important (I firmly reject all of the "Azriel's mate must be able the have his kids" theories), how the bond works is also portrayed inconsistently.

How the bond works?

Feyre and Rhys's bond seems to play more into their daemati powers, and is easily masked by their bargain. We don't know if or how Vivianne and Kallias, and Cassian and Nesta can communicate through their bond, since there are such few scenes with them together (post-bond acceptance).

It's also unclear what "snapping" and "rejection" mean in the context of the bond.

Cassian and Rhys fear the bond being "rejected" after their bonds are "locked into place permanently" and "became unbreakable". Rhys seems to imply that "rejection" doesn't actually alter the bond, it stays in place as a tether, and the males often go insane from the rejection. This seems to to imply that "rejection" is more of a concept of practice, a "breaking up" of the couple, rather than a breaking of the mental and soul connection that the bond creates.

Prior to ACOSF, I believed the mutual acceptance of the bond was the "snapping," because in ACOWAR, Rhys says that it's hard to detect whether Nesta and Cassian are mates until after the bond "snaps," but it's clear from ACOSF, that Cassian was aware of the bond well before this moment. However, in ACOSF, we see that Elain and Lucien's bond is something that Azriel can detect, even though their bond hasn't been accepted.

I've separated bond-related evidence into The Male Realization, the Female Realization, and Bond Acceptance, because those are the scenes that are most recognizable. [All of this is based on the idea that the male has the earlier realization of the bond and the more powerful instincts, because we haven't seen the process of recognizing and accepting the bond for the same-sex couples in SJMs works (Emrys and Malakai in TOG and Thesan and his suspected Peregryn mate mentioned in ACOWAR). I'd assume for these couples, one person had the realization before the other, but the mating instincts are all the same, but again, SJM's work is inconsistent when it refers to the gendered nature of bonds.]

The Male Realization

We've never seen a male's perspective when they recognize the mating bond for what it is, but Feyre observes the realization for both Rhysand and Lucien.

Even though Rhys had long suspected the bond, going as far as trying to kill Amarantha because of it, he literally stumbles in shock when the bond snaps for him, and his first words to Mor upon returning to the townhouse are “she’s my mate.” Rhys clearly feels protective of Feyre since he first met her. He describes the moment of realization, saying "I think transforming you into Fae made the bond lock into place permanently. I’d known it existed, but it hit me then—hit me so strong that I panicked." This "locking into place" seems to be a reference to the bond not being as strong, or being tenuous when Feyre was human, and then the bond gaining strength when she became fae, since Rhys still fears Feyre rejecting the bond in ACOMAF.

We see Lucien whisper it at the worst possible time in Hybern, when Elain comes out of the Cauldron. He is able to break free of Hybern's holds and defend Elain throughout the Hybern scene. We also see him struggle to control his instincts when around Elain, which shows us his realization and manifestation of instincts.Lucien’s perspective also shows us that the bond literally speaks. "Touch her. Smell her. Taste her. The instincts were a running river -" "But even as shame washed through him, the words, the sense chanted, Mine. You are mine, and I am yours. Mate." (ACOWAR) There are also two references to him snarling at males in Elain's presence, which is the manifestation of the territorial/protective instinct.

Meanwhile, the other two accepted bonds involve males who ignored the bond, Kallias (to keep Vivianne safe when he was UTM) and Cassian (likely to have a fighting chance with Nesta). (It is also suspected that Thesan ignored the potential bond with his lover while he was UTM). We know basically nothing about Kallias and Thesan, but we are given some more information from Cassian's perspective.

We see Cassian's experience with the bond is different than Rhys and Lucien. He describes the bond as, "what [he] guessed from the moment [they] met, what [he] knew from the first time he kissed [Nesta], what became unbreakable between [them] on Solstice night." He, like Rhys, "guessed it well before the Cauldron had turned her." It's possible that the bond may have been less strong when she was human, and then gained strength and "locked into place permanently" when Nesta came out of the Cauldron, like it did with Rhys and Feyre (and ostensibly, Elain and Lucien), but there is no textual reference to that being the case.

What we know is that Cassian is both instinctively and consciously protective of Nesta from the moment she walks into the room in Hybern. The first time Cassian kisses Nesta is either when he visits her in Wings and Ember and he kisses her neck, or when he is about to die during the war, after he has literally laid down his life defending Nesta. But when this happens, we see no "shock" of realization, like we did with the other two pairings. We just know that Cassian has this realization, prior to ACOSF and ACOFAS, because Cassian's perspective shows him ignoring the bond, “Some small, quiet part of his brain whispered otherwise. He ignored it. Had ignored it for a long time now.” (ACOSF). Even after "what became unbreakable between [them] on Solstice night," Cassian says, "the only thing that frightened him was that she might reject it. Hate him for it. Chafe against it."

So I think it's possible that if Azriel does have a mating bond, he hasn't had the realization yet, but may have started to see the signs with either of his love interests. If he does have a bond, it seems that it would have "spoken" to him, making him realize it, unless there's some magical or psychological reason he misses it completely.

The Female Realization

In the ACOTAR universe, it seems that the female doesn't usually "realize" the bond is there on her own, or at least Vivianne, Nesta, Feyre, and Elain haven't. (Aelin did in TOG, but we are ignoring that here for aforementioned reasons).

Feyre has no clue about the bond until the Suriel tells her. That is not to say that Feyre doesn't feel a tug toward Rhys, she just doesn't recognize that tug as the mating bond, and she's surprised that she is an apparent equal to the most powerful high lord in history.

Nesta seems to have guessed the bond is there, but is repressing that, because she fears what it will mean for her and Cassian. "At [Cassian's] utter silence, she knew what he'd say. Halted again, bracing for it" and when Cassian finally says it, "She let the truth, voiced at last, wash over her." However, Nesta's delayed realization doesn't stop the "golden thread" moment from occurring, which I am interpreting as the acceptance of the bond.

We haven't seen Elain's perspective yet, but we do see that Elain knows Lucien is her mate, and she feels him "tug" on the bond during ACOWAR. Elain also steps toward Lucien when he leaves to find Vassa. We have no clue what any of this means, but we do know that Elain knows the bond is present with Lucien, and she hasn't reacted to him in any way because of it.

It may be possible the Gwyn or Elain are able to detect a bond with Azriel prior to him recognizing (like Aelin in TOG), if there is some foul play, or some other psychological reason for Azriel to have missed the recognition and manifestation of instincts. But more likely than not, if Azriel does have a bond, it hasn't manifested or "snapped" yet, or at least, we didn't see that manifestation in the bonus chapter.

The Bond Acceptance

We know the males feel the bond before the females do, but it seemed the "golden thread" moment we see with Feysand and Nessian is the bond being accepted.

The offering of food seems to be the official ritual for acceptance, rather than a requirement or a trigger, since Nesta doesn't offer Cassian food until after ACOSF. Rather, it seems the bond acceptance is triggered by sex and a recognition of feelings. For Feyre, and Vivianne, the bond snaps the first time they have sex with their mates, but after feelings are clearly established, and for Nesta it manifests after the both admit to having feelings for one another on Solstice night.

Feyre and Nesta say the , "You're mine. I'm yours," refrain in these moments, which makes me think this is the bond's instincts manifesting for the females (although we see both sisters be jealous/ protective when other females are around their mates prior to the bond acceptance). This acceptance seems to be what strengthens the territorial instincts (Rhysand fighting Cassian in tensing around Azriel in ACOMAF) and what initiates the frenzy, which Cassian describes as, "I woke up the next morning and all I wanted to do was fuck [Nesta] for the a week straight. And I knew what that meant, what had happened, even though [Nesta] didn't".

So what does it mean for the bond to "snap"?

That's still really unclear! If the bond snapping means detection, it would be helpful to know when others detected Feysand and Nessian's bonds. We never see that happen, Amren "sniffs" Feyre, but she knows about the Bond prior to that moment, because she is the one who advises Rhys on using the bond as a way to free Feyre from Tamlin. No one reveals to Feyre or Nesta that a mating bond exists, but it is also possible that Nesta's glamour on Solstice was meant to hide more than just Cassian's scent on Nesta, and that Feyre and Rhys's mixed scents when Rhys is shot in ACOMAF is a result of the mating bond, not just the fact that the couples were sexually intimate, and physically close enough for their scents to transfer.

Meanwhile, Feyre and Tamlin (and Thesan and his lover) have sex and admit to having feelings for eachother, but are described as "waiting for the bond to snap". This would imply that the bond often "snaps" later, for established couples. Similarly, when Rhys and Feyre are discussing Mor and Azriel, Feyre asks, “Wouldn’t the mating bond have snapped into place for them if it exists?” Rhys responds: "I think that is a question Azriel has been asking himself every day since he met Mor.” With Moriel, we have neither recognition of feelings or sex, but Rhysand and Feyre seem to think the bond would "snap" regardless of Azriel's lack of love confession, and their lack of physical relationship.

So all of this leaves us with even more questions than we started with!

When does a mating bond "snap" and is this a different moment form when the bond is "accepted" or "realized?"

Has Elain and Lucien's bond "snapped?" And if so, what triggers "snapping?"

If it hasn't snapped, why can Azriel smell their bond? And why weren't Nesta or Feyre able to smell their own unaccepted bonds before they realized what was happening?

If Azriel is Elain's true mate or is Gwyn's mate, why hasn't he realized it yet? Would he be able to miss the bond completely absent foul play?

Is physical proximity what triggers the scent? or mental connection? or something else entirely?

Anyway, SJM hasn't given us any meaningful answers on these concepts, but there do seem to be some trends. It's Sarah's world, we're just reading it, but I really hope she clears up these concepts when she writes her next set of mates.

[dyaus-pita]

Speaking as someone who likes both Ingrid and Hilda, I find the discussions around their prejudices to be cancerous.

I'll be blunt: I really dislike how the game handles both the Tragedy of Duscur and the relations between Goneril/Almyra, and a large part of it is because they feel so...mechanical, for the lack of a better word.

The part about Goneril having indentured Almyran servants seems to exist purely to explain how Cyril got to Fodlan while trying to add more "gray morality" and make Almyra more sympathetic; outside of the paralogue, which explains Cyril's backstory, it's never mentioned, which seems like a pretty glaring thing to miss in a route where Fodlan/Almyra relations is supposed to be important. The attempt at making Almyra sympathetic backfires because 1) it's confirmed that they attack the border just for the lulz, and 2) there's no reason why they conscript kids. Generally when a country employs child soldiers, it's a last resort and not the default behavior. In fiction, it's used to either depict a country as extremely evil or extremely desperate, and neither of those cases apply to Almyra.

Another issue with this particular plot point is that the game doesn't give any details on Cyril's time with House Goneril, which ties into third major problem which is that it creates character inconsistencies. Both the Goneril siblings want to make peace with Almyra, and they're both supposed to be rather compassionate individuals; Hilda's support with Cyril also says that everything she knows about Almyra is what people have told her, and it's not clear whether or not she's even met one before. So if House Goneril does have indentured servants, are they kept by relatives? Are there many of them? Are Holst and Hilda even aware of how they're being treated, and if they're not, is it a case of willful blindness or complete ignorance? These are important questions, but none of them are even acknowledged.

Claude looks worse too, since he just seems to ignore all of this. He doesn't acknowledge Almyra using child soldiers, his best friend's family using the captured soldiers as servants, or the fact that there are pointless raids happening in the first place, so his talk about opening borders and eliminating race issues just makes him look like a clueless knobend. Which again, would not be an issue if that was by design and if it was a part of the story, but it's not.

The worst part is that this wasn't even necessary to explain how Cyril got to Fodlan; he could be a survivor of a village on the border that got destroyed in the crossfire that Rhea just happened to find. If the writers didn't want to address the elephant in the room, that's probably what they should have gone with.

The Tragedy of Duscur has the advantage of being used in the plot, but just like with the servants in Goneril, the game only cares about it as a way to give something for the Lions to angst about and to serve as another mystery box. But the circumstances and details are barely touched upon and it's resolved by just having some random guy who doesn't even have a name say that he did it because Ideals before being just dropped altogether. To be honest, I find that even worse than the game forgetting about Goneril and Almyra, because this is something you're blueballed with for the whole game and the payoff is completely unsatisfactory, so it feels like game is wasting your time for getting invested in it.

So what does this have to do with Hilda and Ingrid? Basically when the topic of Ingrid and her racism comes up, there's often someone who brings up Hilda, often accompanied by "Hilda is the REAL CEO of Racism." Then there's a debate about who is more racist and therefore who deserves to be torn down, and these plot points will inevitably come up. I hate these arguments for several reasons:

It's pedantic as hell and it mainly boils down to which form of bad writing do you find more tolerable.

The arguments can get almost stan-like at times in the sense that one of the characters gets their lines read in the most uncharitable fashion, which is how you end up with takes where people claim that Ingrid and Hilda refer to Almyrans and Duscurans as animals - something that's not even implied by the text. It also involves people ignoring key parts of their dialogue, such as Ingrid apologizing to Dedue and Hilda's B and A rank supports with Cyril.

CEO of Racism jokes are unfunny cancer, regardless of which character is stuck with that label.

It's because of this that you end up with people talking about some weird, bastardized, one-dimensional versions of the characters, such as Ingrid being a homophobe because she doesn't let Dorothea sexually harrass her, or the Claude/Hilda ending leading to Hilda being some sort of oppressive queen, which is a take I've actually seen. It also has the consequence of stifling the discussion of certain character traits that don't get brought up often, but give them a lot of color.

tl;dr version: Ingrid and Hilda are good people with a pretty glaring character flaw that is not addressed properly because the writers are hacks; all the memes are reductionist garbage and I wish people would stop trying to tear them down.

[richieisabastardman]

Hold Me Now - Part 3 - Richie Tozier x Reader

Part 1 Part 2 >>> Part 4

Summary: You had forgotten about everything that happened in Derry until Mike called you up. Now, sitting in the restaurant surrounded by your friends, you remembered everything. More importantly, you remember Richie. (Fluff/Angst/Sexy Stuff)

Word count: 2887

Warnings: Swearing, Sexual Situations (not smut)

Notes: Thank you all for all of the kind words about the previous parts!! It honestly motivates me to write so much :) Again, I’d love to hear what you guys think of this! Hope you enjoy. Also, I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors/inconsistencies. I read over things a thousand times and I still miss little things :’( 

You felt a heavy weight around your waist and a light snoring from behind you. You panicked for a moment before remembering the events of the night before. Smiling to yourself you turned around to face the tall man who was still sleeping soundly in your bed. You raised a hand to his cheek, feeling his stubble beneath your fingers. He let out a sigh, still within the blissfulness of a dream, and you tucked some of his hair behind his ear. He blinked his eyes awake. Confusion, like yours, had laced his features before he realised where he was. At the realisation he smiled, pulling you closer into his chest and resting his face within your hair.

“Morning” he mumbled, still drowsy from sleep

“Sleep well?” You asked, your hand against his chest. You felt him nod above you, his grip tight around your shoulders now. He held you to him like he never wanted you to let you go. You hoped he wouldn’t. There was a strong protectiveness about him now that you had only seen briefly before. You remembered when you were younger and he almost pummelled a boy for making comments about your body. He could never fight; he didn’t have the coordination. However, every now and then a strong need to protect others burst through him. It was in those moments that you liked him best.

“Yeah I slept fine. Why are you laughing?” he asked suspiciously as you chucked at the memories of your childhood with the man. They rushed into your mind like a flood. However, unlike the memories that came back to you when you entered Derry, these were pleasant. These memories were of feather light touches and words as sweet as sugar. Memories of the man you left behind to pursue your dreams outside of Maine.

“Just thought about how much of a dweeb you looked with those glasses when you were a kid” you said, and he feigned injury at your words.

“Bullying Y/N? Really? That’s low. Especially considering the fact that you tried to fuck me last ni-“

You cut him off by reaching up to his face and placing your lips against his. He accepted the gesture immediately, kissing you back deeply. You tilted your head, allowing his tongue access into your mouth. His hand rested on your jaw as his thumb rubbed it lightly.

After a moment you pulled away, smiling up at him. He smiled back at you. “Beep Beep Richie, yeah?”

“Yeah” Richie said, continuing to beam at you. His eyes were glazed over and that dumb smile he had refused to leave his face. You both had almost forgotten why you were in this motel in the first place. Almost.

~

You had laid with Richie in bed for at least thirty more minutes, chatting about your lives in Derry and your lives now, all whilst Richie drew figures on your back with his fingers. His other hand was entangled with yours. Every now and again he would untangle himself to play with your fingers, his hands almost comically large when placed next to yours.

“I’ve seen all of your movies the day they came out” Richie admitted, placing a feathery kiss upon your forehead.

“You have not” you laughed into his chest.

“Scouts honor!” He replied “Every single one. Why wouldn’t I?”.

“And what is your professional opinion of my work?” you asked, looking up at him.

He looked at the ceiling for a moment, thinking carefully. When he finally looked down at you, a wide grin graced his face and he replied “Meh”.

You hit his chest lightly, laughing.

“I’m just kidding. They were all great. Even that one that the critics said was too self-gratuitous”.

You cringed at the memory and Richie rubbed your shoulder encouragingly.

“Still” He said “Y/N Y/L/N the director. I always knew you’d make it”.

You smiled up at him, and he at you, before you lifted your head to leave a light peck on his lips. Whilst your memories of Richie grew hazier the further you moved away from Derry; you still felt an internal force driving you to achieve your dreams for his sake. You had left him to deal with your absence alone in Derry until he finally moved away, chasing his own dreams and desires. You felt terrible about leaving him at the time - and, not surprisingly, you felt the same way now.

You remembered the insecurity and doubt you had felt when you first arrived in New York. So many times you had wanted to give up on your dreams to work in the film industry. So often you had thought that pursuing a nine-to-five job would be much easier than working your ass off for no reward and even less money.

However, these thoughts always ended with a pull at your heart and a voice within you that screamed

“Do it for him. Make him proud.”.

For a while you thought the Him might have been God. You quickly realised however that if such a being did exist, he would be too busy to be concerned with your career aspirations. People are starving on an abundant planet and are dying of curable diseases Y/N, you thought to yourself, God is probably more concerned with that. It was only when that taxi had passed the sign, Welcome to Derry!, that you had finally realised who the Him was. And when you remembered, you couldn’t believe that you had forgotten.

~

Seventeen years old was a strange age, you always thought. Away from the sweet sixteens and too far from the looming adulthood of eighteen, seventeen was an age of awkwardness. Your future, something you had been forced to consider (and worse, plan for) in the last few months since turning seventeen hovered over you like a cloud before a thunderstorm. It taunted you with the uncertainty of just how chaotic it could turn out to be. And yet, as you sat in the movie theatre with Richie sitting next to you watching some trashy nineties film, the clouds had seemed to clear. In fact, the sky was blue and there was a nice breeze blowing through your mind. You were the calmest you had felt in months.

Calm before the storm. A voice within your head whispered, but you paid it no mind, reaching into the bucket of popcorn which sat in Richie’s lap.

“I don’t know why you get to hold the popcorn” you whispered, irritated.

“You’ll understand once you get to the bottom of the bucket” Richie said and winked at you.

You furrowed your brow in confusion before the innuendo clicked and you gagged. Richie laughed loudly before being shushed by two men in the row in front of you. One of the men, the one who looked much more irritated at Richie’s outburst than the other, had his arm secured around the other man’s shoulders. The other man whispered to the irritated one. He spoke in hushed tones and smiles, and you watched as the irritated man’s tensed shoulders began to relax. Thank god, you thought, the last thing I need is Richie getting the shit kicked out of him. Finally, the calmer man left a kiss upon the other man’s cheek, causing the irritated man to unwrinkle his forehead and smile. It was the kind of smile that reached your whole face. The kind of smile that softens the eyes and weighs down the eyelids. There were only two reasons people smiled like that; they had smoked just the right amount of weed or they were looking at the love of their life.

You smiled at the actions of the men (though the smile was not as strong as the one currently plastered on the man’s face), before moving your gaze back to Richie. The boy was staring at the couple, eyes wide but not due to shock or fear. He continued to stare at them, the movie on the screen no longer of importance to him. His gaze only broke when he noticed your own upon him. He quickly looked back at the screen, stuffing his mouth full of popcorn.

“I can’t believe people actually spent money making this trash“ he tried to whisper; his mouth still full. Bits of chewed up popcorn jumped out from between his lips as though they were trying to escape their fate within his gut. “You could’ve have made something a thousand times better. I mean, I’ve read your scripts, and even your shit ones are better than this”.

You snorted. “Thanks Richie, I think” you said, and reached into the bucket for another handful of popcorn.

~

 “So, this Fiancé” Richie said cautiously, and you felt yourself being yanked from your thoughts viciously. Your body froze and you knew Richie had felt your sudden rigidness as he began biting his lip nervously. “Sorry” he said “I just-“

“No. Its okay.” You replied. “We should… talk about this, I guess”.

“What’s his name?” he asked.

“David Johnson” you answered.

“David Johnson” he repeated, though his tone was mocking the man despite not being in his presence. You rolled your eyes at his childishness. “So, what’s his deal?”.

“He’s an actor” you said, and Richie scoffed.

“Why haven’t I seen him in anything then?” Richie said, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s a failed actor. He self-sabotages, you know? Every time he gets a role he fucks it up by turning up to set late or drunk or both” you rambled and you could hear Richie sigh from above you.

“Is that why you don’t want to be engaged to him” he asked.

You thought for a moment, wondering whether it was worth mentioning all the things he had done. All it took was a kiss on your head from Richie to let the flood gate open. “Partly” you said, “Also because I caught him screwing his agent in her office”.

A silence fell between the two of you. Richie was shaking his head, running his hand through his hair in frustration. You could tell he wanted to blow. He wanted to rant about your piece of shit Fiancé and how he was going to regret ever fucking with you.

He chose instead to take in a deep breath and attempt to diffuse the situation within his own mind with what he knew how to do best; joke about it. “Actor, Alcoholic and Adulterer. Wow, he’s a triple threat”. You could hear the bitterness in his voice.

Richie had never approved of the men you took interest in, even if they appeared to be God’s gift. Once, as a teen, you told him you thought River Phoenix was cute and from that point he had refused to see any movie he was in. You still weren’t sure if he had ever seen Stand By Me. However, this was different. He had good reasons to hate the man. And so did you.

You sat up and Richie’s face was painted with disappointment until he looked into your eyes. They were serious, gazing into his. The last time you had looked at him like this, you were about to leave for New York. You had stared into his eyes, just like this, and said you would see him again soon. “It’ll only be a few years; it’ll be over before you know it” you had said.

Your voice, low but strong, shook Richie from his thoughts. “I’m going to break up with him. If we don’t die trying to kill that fucking clown, I’m going to do it” you said, and Richie hoped that this time you would keep your promise.

Suddenly, you heard a banging at your motel door. You jumped slightly and groaned when you realised it was just Bill. “Y/N get up! We’re going to go meet Mike!”.

“Fine! Give me a minute to get ready” you yelled back as a reply.

Richie stared at you, his eyes shifting from a softness to a tightness that could only indicate fear was rising within him. The loud knocking of Bill’s hand upon your door had blown away the veil of comfort you and Richie had wrapped around yourselves within your motel room. This wasn’t a school reunion. You were here to kill a clown or die trying.

“We need to get dressed” Richie said. Just as he began to sit up, he scrunched up his face in irritation.

“What?” you asked.

“My clothes… are next door” he replied. The bliss of being held in each other’s arms had rendered you both temporarily amnesic it seemed.

You shook your head, taking a moment to think. You had no issue with the rest of the gang knowing that you and Richie had spent a night together in your motel room. Nothing had technically happened anyway. However, the questions and prying would be way too much to handle this early in the morning. Plus, there were more important things to spend your energy on, like that fucking clown. “I’ll keep watch at the door, and you can sneak out?” you suggested and Richie nodded his head, following you off the bed.

“I feel like a fucking teenager again” Richie said and you shushed him.

You opened the door just enough that you could gaze out of it and into the hallway of the motel. Seeing no one, you opened the door a bit wider and stuck your head out to get a better look. Seeing that it was completely clear, you turned around in order to motion to Richie that he could leave. As you turned, you bumped directly into his chest. He was standing right behind you, his hand now on your waist. You whispered a quiet “Fuckin’ hell Rich” and he smiled down at you apologetically.

You pulled the door completely open, allowing Richie to walk past you through the door frame and out into the hall. He stood there for a moment and you looked at him, confused as to why he hadn’t run to his room yet. Finally, he turned around towards you. Just as you were about to question him, he pulled you by your waist towards him and brought you into a passionate kiss. You accepted the kiss, kissing him back just as deeply, however your mind was still panicking at the thought of being caught.

He pulled back for only a moment before placing his face into your neck, kissing along the length of it sloppily. You considered pushing him back, but when reached the junction between your neck and shoulder and left a soft bite there you decided instead to shut your eyes and place your hand against his chest. His hands moved from your waist to your ass, and he pulled the bottom half of your body towards his. So he won’t do this in private, but he’ll do it in the middle of a motel hallway you thought. Such thoughts were cut short by Richie grinding himself into you, clearly excited by the current situation. You let out a gasp which Richie intercepted with his mouth once again, connecting his lips with yours in a kiss.

Another gasp was heard within that hallway. At first, you thought it was Richie. However, when his movements stilled and he removed his lips from your own, you realised it was most definitely not. Looking to your left, Eddie stood just outside of his motel door. His mouth was open in shock; his eyes wide. His hand was still on the handle of his room door, frozen. Richie considered running back into your room, but it was too late, Eddie had seen him. He had seen more than just Richie, in fact. You were not sure if Eddie had seen all of it, but he had definitely seen enough. “I fucking knew it!” he said, laughing to himself.

Shaking his head in disbelief, he began to make his way down the hall and past the two of you, towards the stairs. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that for my own sake” he said, moving quickly “but I am definitely going to hold it against you. Forever!”.

Both you and Richie were frozen in place, watching the small man jet past you and down to the others who were waiting in the lobby. To the eye that was untrained in Richie Tozier’s library of facial expressions, the face he was currently displaying would have merely appeared neutral. His mouth was closed into a thin line and his eyes, while wide, were not crying out with any particular thoughts or feelings. However, you had known Richie long enough to know that he was not thrilled about what had just happened. The face he wore was not just one of embarrassment. You had seen Richie embarrassed and he was much more bashful than this. No, it was more shameful than that. More apologetic. It was sadder.

You reached out towards him, but he backed away. He shook his head and his expression changed almost too quickly, as though he had pressed the reset button on his brain. “I should go get dressed. They’re waiting for us”. And with that he disappeared into his room, leaving you alone in the hallway for the second time in two days.  

Tag list: @felicityofbakerstreet @itsfuckinemily @emiliesnowflake @adritozier @the-almond-dinger @brenna-xoxox @fionnthebandersnacc 

If you would like to be added to the tag list, please let me know in a reply to this post! 

[sunevial]

Reflection

Author’s Notes and Commentary

Well, here we are at the end.

When I started writing The Followers, I genuinely didn’t think it would come this far. I wasn’t setting out to write a literal novel’s worth of content (122,655 words between everything before I edit the original Followers fic, to be precise) about some self-insert OCs that some friends and I ended up creating on a whim. When I started with this project, it was supposed to be some fun little things between friends, a little like DMP in that regard: a fun fic writing with friends where plenty of bad things happen. Except like its source material, it turned into something much greater than even its creator could’ve imagined. 

Nearly everything that we came up with was pure speculation, because at the time, DMP didn’t have a lot of solid lore to build a more canon-compliant AU (not that I/we were ever trying to do that in the first place, but I digress). Part of me is a bit sad that I was never able to incorporate other Awakened or even write fics centered around the Awakened as opposed to the Followers; at the time most of this was being written, there simply weren’t enough characters in DMP for me to have a cast I could write with. By the time there were, there was no way I could take on another project of this size. The Followers fit that niche of having a relatively large cast with varying interpersonal dynamics that DMP now has, and at the very least, I am glad to see I was able to predict something in the major narrative.

This being said, as a person, I love making self insert characters for stories and media. In my eyes, if I can see myself or a character I have made interacting with a world someone else has created, that piece of media has made a world that others can see themselves in. Even in its early days, DMP created a world that I felt could be expanded upon beyond what we were explicitly told, which is how the Followers really came to be in the first place. Even if none of it is canon, the lore of the Followers still reasonably fits with the information we were given in Season 1, and that makes me happy.

(No, I’m never updating this to explore what we know as of season 3.)

A lot has changed since I started writing the Followers, and more broadly, writing anything for myself again. For those who didn’t know, I had a lot of hangups writing fanfiction for a long time due to some events in my past, and it wasn’t until DMP that I felt both inspired enough and comfortable enough with the community surrounding it to branch out into fic writing once again. Throughout this two and a half year journey, material and backstory elements were fleshed out behind the scenes, quite a bit of stuff got retconned within the Follower’s AU, and overall, I have quite simply changed as a writer and a person. I’ve made a lot of amazing friends (and a significant other) in this process, interacted with a lot of wonderful people, and in something that surprised even me, some of the DMP cast themselves have read my work. It’s really helped me break out of my shell and branch out into other avenues, and I genuinely don’t know where I’d be without writing the Followers.

So, to everyone who has been here on this journey, whether you helped develop the characters (shout outs to my fellow creators, Onyx, Missfoxx, ArcherOwl, Arahul, CollectorOfMyst, Caaarl, KyleTheWarrior, you guys are sincerely wonderful and amazing people to work with), been an avid fan of the series, or have simply enjoyed watching all of this from the side lines: thank you. I couldn’t have done this alone, and I’m glad to have gone on this journey with you all.

The Followers: Agents of Stories

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t have a working theme going into this whole novel long journey, but I will be touching on some of the various themes I began to weave into the story as time went on.

The truth matters.

The truth is the single most driving factor throughout the series. Characters uncover each other’s backstories, Young Priest learns the real reason why the stories of the Followers have been so inconsistent, Vincent learns the truth about his wife, and even the readers of this fic learn the truth about the lore I’ve created for this AU. Wanting to know what is really going on is really the driver of any modern narrative, because it’s often the readers who are in the dark since we can only experience things from (typically) one perspective as we read. 

Truth, like history, is often written by the victors and people in power.

Murder God and the Followers are experts at lying. To them, truth is a tool, and whoever knows the truth has the most power. The truth is complicated, the truth is messy, and for beings that powerful, the truth is objectively dangerous. If word gets out Gale is the Witch’s daughter, if too many people know Young Priest’s sister is in the Void, if people learn that Priestess actually cares about Lieutenant, that gives other people power over them. This is where the idea of unreliable narrators also comes into play; there’s simply things that the reader doesn’t know because of who’s POV they’re experiencing the world through and what they’re going to care about letting other people know. They don’t want people to know the truth. I

A story’s message is more important than the truth.

Good narratives and good historical records rarely intersect well. There’s always going to be embellishment, stuff that is left out or skimmed over, or timelines that are changed to better suit the story someone is trying to tell. Because the truth is often written by people in power, it makes sense for the general scope of the narrative to be prioritized over getting every single detail correct. No one actually cares if Witch lost her pregnancy, if Huntress was killed by another god, if Advisor actually feared something happening to him. People care about the Witch, the human who has fallen from grace. People care about the Huntress, bringer of vengeance and the hunt. People care about the Advisor, collector of knowledge and secrets. As long as the mythos is served, who cares about the truth?

General Questions

What is the order the Followers joined?

Old Priestess, Lieutenant, Witch, Bookkeeper, Advisor, Huntress, Part Timer, Young Priest

What do all of the Followers represent in terms of game rolls?

Old Priestess and Lieutenant are the Murderers, Witch is the Witch (you can save someone and you can kill someone), Bookkeeper is the Minion (aids the murderers but does not partake in the killings), Advisor is the Seer, Huntress is the Gunslinger, Part Timer is the Doctor/Bodyguard (protect one person every night), and Young Priest is the Gardener.

How many of the Followers have been replaced?

Less than you think. Witch is the last in a long line of typically human or quasi-immortal witches who didn’t survive. The Young Priest position has changed hands multiple times due to that role actively needing some human morality to work properly, which usually results in minds being broken or rebellions taking place. 

Can Old Priestess and Lieutenant bleed?

Old Priestess, yes. Lieutenant, no, but I suppose he could make blood if he really felt like it.

The Masquerade chapter mentioned something about Priestess having "ichor" that helped stabilize Bookkeepers' blood. What is that quote un quote ichor?

It’s just her own blood. Priestess donated her own blood to help stabilize Bookkeeper.

How many years did it take for Bookkeeper’s legs to heal? Are there any scars?

Time doesn’t really exist in the Void, but if I had to put a number to it, about ten years. There are some very small scars, but they’re not easy to see. Bookkeeper also never wears anything that isn’t long sleeved, so take that as you will.

Could you stick your hand through Part Timer’s eye hole? How does he function with half of his skin gone? Does he get blood everywhere?

Yes, you can, but you’d soon hit red strings. His muscle tissue and bones are held together with magic and magic alone, so his ‘undead’ side needs blood only in the vaguest sense. That being said, his clothes are almost always bloodstained to some extent, so that blood has to come from somewhere.

What are the Followers’ opinions on sleeping? Do any of them need sleep?

None of them need sleep. Most of them are too busy to ever want sleep. Huntress occasionally lies down for a nap, and Witch slept a fair bit while she was raising Gale.

How do Advisor's…emotion switches work? Could they get unwillingly triggered by something?

The switches are more metaphorical. The idea is that since he understands how emotions are processed and created and how he responds to them, he can willingly enable or disable his ability to feel them. This also means he can, in theory, control his mood at all given times. However, as shown in Inter Spem et Metum, if he has had no reason to experience a certain emotion until that exact moment, it can temporarily render that control useless, as he doesn’t know enough about it to control it.

Can any of them get sick? If yes, what could cause it and how would they get better?

Biological illness, no. Curse based illnesses, yes. Typically if one of them were to get cursed by something strong enough to hold, Witch would be the one to break it. She’s their primary curse breaker. If Witch gets cursed, the others know enough about curse breaking to get her out of it.

Can they get sick from something their own bodies do (ie. hives from stress, allergies)?

Almost all of their bodies are so infused with magic that most problems that would plague mortals aren’t as much of a concern. It would be a little bit like, say, Aphrodite getting hives from stress. While she might look human, she’s definitely not, and a lot of the problems that come with being human don’t apply.

When did Retribution take place?

Before Part Timer joined. That’s the closest to an actual answer you’re going to get.

How many of the Followers actually know each other’s stories?

Everyone has an inkling of the truth of the others, but only Witch and Bookkeeper have let the others know their full story. Bookkeeper has never really cared, and Witch was all but forced to tell her full story. 

Are there any ships that the creators ship among the Followers?

Old Priestess and Lieutenant is shipped by Old Priestess’s creator (Missfoxx), Lieutenant’s creator (Onyx), and me. It’ll never be canon, because Lieutenant doesn’t know what love feels like and Old Priestess will never admit her own feelings, but it is a strong ship between the three of us. Bookkeeper’s creator (Caaarl) and I actually ship Bookkeeper and Witch due to their unspoken bond they developed being the only former humans amongst ancient deities and eldritch entities. Again, non canon, but it’s definitely an exploration for both of us how the two of them would cope with such traumatic transformations.    

What actually happened with Vincent’s wish in Chapter 20?

This was intentionally left vague due to it being from Vincent’s point of view, and Vincent calls himself not a smart man. Essentially, Murder God and the Followers caused a timeline divergence due to their canon ability to fuck up timelines as they so desire. Gale still married Vincent Marshall Reid, but he simply just died in the war overseas and never took Murder God’s deal. Vincent Marshall Reid of DMP canon instead grew up in West Virginia and married Abigail Crane. Essentially, the two of them exist in different timelines now, unable to ever interact again in any meaningful way.

Is Gale going to be okay?

Gale is Witch’s daughter. Witch refuses to let Gale get mixed up with the cults. Even with her current actions and making a deal with Murder God, Gale is considered a free agent and always will be a free agent. She and the kids will be fine. Star sickness isn’t a thing in the Followers AU either, so she won’t be coughing up goop.

What is actually going to happen to Young Priest in Chapter 21?

That’s meant for reader speculation; part of the horror of the Followers is not knowing specifically what they’re willing to do to someone and how far they’re willing to go to make someone into the image they need. I’ll probably expand on how I think he turns out once everything has been done to him, but I can tell you this. His eyes are turned a solid sparkling blue.

[modestmuses-a]

5, 6, 11, 18, 21, 23, 26, 30, 34, 35, 43, 50 - ekko

//CAS I ALREADY DON’T SHUT UP ABOUT THIS BOY AS IT IS.  WHY WOULD YOU ENCOURAGE ME AND SUBJECT MY FOLLOWERS TO THIS??  i’m gonna have to fuckin readmore this for length because Christ…

Unusual Headcanons | accepting

5. How many blankets / pillows do they like to have on their bed?

One of each.  When it’s exceptionally warm out, you can nix the blanket.  Although, “blanket” is kind of a strong word for it.  It’s really more of a threadbare rag at this point.  When it gets cold out, he does think, “Hm, I better replace this,” but then he immediately forgets about it upon waking up and getting on with his day.

6. What do they normally dream about?  Nightmares or nonsense?

Thanks to time travel fucking with his circadian rhythm, it’s very rare for Ekko to get any more than three or four hours of sleep at a time.  More on that here.

But his terrible non-existent sleeping patterns, coupled with a whole host of repressed negative emotions that he hasn’t properly worked through because he doesn’t want to burden anyone with his problems, mean his nightmares are frequent and severe.  Usually of the ridiculously gory variety.  His nightmares typically end with him dying in some over-the-top, Final-Destination-esque way.

(Speaking of, my favorite death from those movies is from the third one, where the girl stumbles backwards into a nail gun and takes several nails through the back of her skull right out the front of her face.)

If you were to watch them, like, as a horror movie, some of them might be laughable.  (If you’re into that sort of thing.)  And indeed, he does try to laugh some of them off, although whether it’s genuine laughter or him trying to put on a brave face and again refusing to acknowledge that he’s got Issues is up for debate.

11. Bar soap or liquid?  Do they like loofahs?

Bar soap.  No loofahs.

18. Do they prefer cats or dogs?  Or neither?

Ekko doesn’t really have a preference!  He’ll drop scraps down to stray animals when he has the scraps to spare, and he’s made a number of furry friends of both species this way.  Sometimes, you’ll just see random animals tailing him as he walks through the city, ‘cause they’re hoping to get more food out of him.  He feels guilty when he doesn’t have anything to give them.

21. Did they have any fears growing up that they’ve since conquered?

Ekko used to be afraid of trees when he was younger and would always hold his breath when he walked by the cultivair.  This is because he heard a story about a man who accidentally inhaled a tree seed and ended up growing a tree in his lung.  He now knows that it’s ridiculous to be afraid of trees for that reason since the odds of it happening to him are infinitesimally small, but he’ll still tell people the story of Ol’ Tree Lung whenever they pass the cultivair, regardless of how many times his present company has heard it before.  Most of his friends are sick to death of Ol’ Tree Lung by now.

23. How do they show fear?  Sweating, shaking, blankness, anger, etc?

Ekko shakes something fierce when he gets scared.  He also starts stammering and messing up sentences on account of his brain working much faster than his mouth.  He’ll start a sentence and not finish it.  Tries to restart the sentence slightly different this time and doesn’t finish that one either.  Starts a sentence, cuts it off, starts a different sentence about a completely different thought, loses track of that one, too.

desperately tries not to cry

26. What are they most passionate about?  What could they debate about for hours?

Ekko is passionate about… eating the rich.  When are we bringing back the guillotine again?? kfhdgkdf

No, but seriously, Ekko is pretty adamant about “Capitalism sucks” and believes that the best use of wealth is providing for those less fortunate than you.  He doesn’t have a lot, but he’s always using what he does have to help the Lost Children and his parents first and himself second.  He sees people living these lives of luxury, and it makes him sick ‘cause he’s just like… *gestures @ starving orphans* “Y’all wanna like… maybe do something about this sometime?”

He believes that no one should have that much money for any reason because they should be putting it towards making society a better place instead of just… sitting on it.  There is a reason I associate Billy Talent with him (and why “Man Alive!” is his main verse tag) and it’s because they have a lot of songs that just absolutely shit all over capitalism.  I made a playlist for Ekko, and the first four songs on it are Billy Talent criticizing capitalism for the flawed, soul-sucking system that it is.  (Three of the four are from the Dead Silence album.)

Anyway, Billy Talent tangent aside since I can’t control myself…

On April Fool’s, there were a couple IC posts of rich characters saying, “Rich people don’t have rights!” but then claiming to be exceptions to the rule.  Like, one of them said, “I have rights ‘cause I didn’t choose to be rich.  I was just born into a rich family.”

And let me tell you, I had to physically restrain Ekko ‘cause he was p i s s e d.  He was in time-out that day, haha!  “Oh, I’m so sorry, it must be so hard for you to have been born into a life of privilege,” he fumes to himself in the little corner I’ve trapped him in.  “NONE OF YOU ARE EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE!  NONE OF YOU HAVE RIGHTS!  AND WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES, YOU’RE GOING TO THE GUILLOTINE WITH THE REST OF ‘EM!”

Me, desperately trying to calm him down like, “No, no, shh, look at the date!  It’s probably just a joke!”

He’s like, “IT FUCKING BETTER BE.”

Tl;dr: Nothing gets Ekko riled quite like rich people being shitty and annoying.

I was also going to mention that Ekko’s passionate about maintaining hope and will argue the importance of not giving up and not letting bad situations turn you into a bad person, but this answer is already hella long, so here’s a brief passing mention of it lmao

30. Is there something about their personality they want to change?

Ekko is… angry deep down.  Or maybe not even so deep down.  Maybe right there, just under his skin.  And he wishes he wasn’t.

He often questions his own goodness, wondering if he’s not just Fake Nice to conceal the wretched thing he actually is.  If you skim the top layer of sweetness off of him, you’re left with this horrid, bitter, hateful little beast.  Or that’s what he thinks sometimes, anyway.

Whether it’s justified or it isn’t, anger is such an ugly emotion, and he’s worried it’s going to cause him to hurt someone he cares about someday.

I often worry about my portrayal of Ekko and how damn inconsistent it is sometimes ‘cause in one thread, he’s this sweet helpful angel who wants to do his best, and in another thread, he’s more bitter than the blackest coffee, but like.  This be why.  He’s a good person.  Just deep down, he’s angry about A Lot, but even deeper down, he’s an even better person.  He feels like his anger is the thing standing between him and being the best person he can be, and he wishes he could get rid of it, but alas, it seems to be stuck to him.

I mean, maybe it wouldn’t be if he ever bothered to resolve any of his Issues, but y’know.  Helping others comes first, so :’)  He’ll worry about helping himself when he’s dead.

34. Are they the jealous type?  What are they most likely to be jealous of?

Hmm, I wouldn’t say Ekko is much of the jealous type, no.  Like, his anger towards rich folks isn’t because he’s jealous of their lifestyle or wants what they have.  It’s because he wants them to be decent fucking people for once.  It doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, but he’s content stomping around in the gutters.  He does wish things were easier on his parents, but he can’t complain about the life of freedom he’s been allowed to lead up to this point.

He doesn’t really get jealous of other people’s relationships either.  Like, I mentioned in a reply to Draven that in the Academy verse, Ekko has a crush on Ahri.  (But only in the Academy verse.)  But like, he doesn’t really get jealous when she dates other guys.  In fact, he expects it.  He hasn’t said anything about his crush on Ahri (although it’s probably a bit obvious), and he’s never going to because he doesn’t expect anything to come of it.  He lowkey doesn’t want anything to come of it because he feels like it’ll just make the dynamics in their friend group weird.  So, really, he’s got no problem with her dating whoever she wants.

35. Are they possessive over their things?  Or over other people?  Both?

The only thing Ekko is especially possessive of is the Zero Drive, for obvious reasons.  It’d be just… the worst to have that fall into the wrong hands.  Time travel is a huge responsibility, Ekko says as he abuses the shit out of it to skip class and get infinite Halloween candy.  Can you imagine what would happen if any of the shadier characters in LoL had the ability to time travel??

He isn’t particularly possessive over the rest of his things, though, and he’ll frequently give stuff up to people he feels could use it more.

As for people… I wouldn’t call him possessive, so much as protective.  He might seem a bit possessive of his friends at times, but it’s only because he’s trying to keep them out of trouble.  Whenever he tells people, “I don’t want you hanging out with so-and-so,” it’s not because he’s being possessive, it’s because so-and-so has Bad Vibes written all over them.

In the modern/K/DA verse, he’s friends with Akali before she gets famous.  She ran away from the dojo and lived on the streets for a while, and it was there that she met Ekko, and honestly, he probably did a lot more than he realizes to keep her out of trouble.  Who knows what kind of bullshit her dumb ass would have gotten into if she hadn’t been trying to set as good of an example for Ekko as she could?

Anyway, modern verse Ekko despises modern verse Shen.  Akali gets back in touch with Shen, and Ekko is extremely vocal about how terrible he finds this whole idea.

And it’s not that he’s possessive of Akali.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite.  When she needed to leave him to join K/DA, he let her go ‘cause he understood that was her big dream and it wouldn’t have been fair to keep her there.  She was destined for better things, and he wanted to see her get off the streets.

But it’s just that… he’s heard stories about the way she was treated at the dojo, so when she tells him she got back in touch with Shen, he gets pissed and tells her that she can’t expect him to support her ripping open old wounds.  He’s just scared that Shen’s going to hurt her again, so when she tries to introduce the two of them to each other, Ekko’s cold towards Shen at best and openly hostile towards him at worst.  He might be inclined to strangle the guy if Akali didn’t have herself situated between them in a somewhat fruitless effort to ease the tension.

43. Do they like living alone or with another person / other people?

Ahaha, Ekko is a huge people-person, actually!  I think he’d just die if he had to live alone.  A big reason he spends so much time away from home and out on the streets is because his parents are never home, and the house feels too empty without them.  He’ll roll back home in the evening, when his parents are getting off work, to enjoy their company for a bit before they both pass out, but unless somebody else is there, he doesn’t want to be either.

If he had to live alone, there wouldn’t be any point in him having a house or anything ‘cause he’d literally never stay there.  He’d always be out chasing adventure and other people’s company.

50. Where do they see themselves in 2 / 5 / 10 years?

God, this is hard because the thing is that Ekko is terrible at making plans for the future, especially long-term plans.  Thinking about the future causes him major stress, especially when he thinks of possibilities that might involve him relinquishing some of his freedom, which is a lot.  Like, he has no desire to go to school or join the workforce - at least not in any sort of traditional way - or any of that, and the fact that he’s not going to be 16 forever is just something that he prefers not to think about!

Anyway, let’s take a crack at it, nonetheless…

In two years, Ekko hopes to have worked up the courage to tell his parents he doesn’t want to go to the academy in Piltover.  Listen… he’s working on it.  But like, he thinks at least part of the reason they work so hard is because they’re trying to put money back to send him to school, and… he’s really torn about it.  He’d feel guilty if they kept working to send him to school without knowing he doesn’t want to go, but he’d also feel guilty if he told them he doesn’t want to go and crushed all their hopes and dreams.  So, really, it is a lose-lose.

But hey, two years is plenty of time to work up the courage, right?

In five years, Ekko’s unsure of whether he’ll still be living with his parents or not.  He knows that he wants to get them into a nicer house, and as such, he’ll likely have to find some way to make money other than thievery.  So, he might consider commercializing an invention or two.

He knows his parents are fond of Piltover for whatever reason, and he would reluctantly let them go there, if they wanted.  That’s why he isn’t sure if he’ll still be living with them or not because if they do choose to go to Piltover, he’s absolutely staying behind in Zaun.  He wants them to be happy, but he’s not going to abandon Zaun like that.  Plus, he can still come visit sometimes, so it’s like… whatever.

He would also like to make a little more progress on the Z-Drive by this point, maybe getting it to the point where he can go back days instead of only minutes.  Just in case.  You never know when that thing you did three days ago is gonna come back around to bite you in the ass.

In ten years, he’ll be 26 and probably (sadly) a bit old to be running around doing dumb teenager things.  Still, he can’t see himself abandoning the Lost Children.  They’ll still need someone, you know?  A large part of his mission with the Lost Children has become keeping them out of trouble, more or less.  The bad kind of trouble, anyway.  Keeping them away from chem-punks and out of the factories and away from drugs and potentially dangerous augmentations, so on and so forth.

He’d like to keep doing that, keep helping kids stay out of bad situations.  Maybe start some sort of home for them, where they can come get a bed and a warm meal.  Or something like a school, but where they’re allowed to study what they want and hone the skills they think will be most useful to them, instead of some arbitrary curriculum they’re not even interested in.  Maybe a bit ambitious for only ten years, but… he hopes to at least be on his way to that sort of thing by then.

He wants to see Zaun be a better place, and children are the future, and he doesn’t want to see any of them fall through the cracks.  If there’s any hope for Zaun to get better - and he believes there is - it starts with its children being happy and safe.

So, his plans are currently:

Tell his parents he doesn’t want to go to the academy.

Get his parents somewhere nicer ‘cause they deserve it.

Improve time travel maybe.

Find a way to get as many children out of harm’s way as humanly possible.

And that’s basically it.

[moonlightfiction]

Chapter 14 - Part 1

We have finally returned and can let poor Falenyo wake up from her unconsciousness!

Start Here Previous Part

CHAPTER 14 - In the dwarves’ forge

“Falenyo … hey, Falenyo, wake up!”

Frecker shook his charge maybe a bit too strong. But he was too worried. When he saw that wound, he should have kept her from trying to heal the young man. How many healers had already given their life by trying to heal something that was way above their skills?

He had failed. As a guardian, he had should looked out for something like that.

But he just understood it, when his charge suddenly fell unconscious. He had kept the flow of her magic in mind. Everything had seen so normal and alright. There had been no inconsistency. And yet she just fell as if someone had hit her.

The most worrisome thing was that she not simply fainted. No, she also lost control over her own strong mentality. The bunny ears and tail that she had kept hidden for so long and under so many different circumstances had appeared again.

Frecker had heard the grand duke gasping but it didn’t concern him.

Zesa was right. It was their nature and if the goddess of light is benevolent, she wouldn’t mind having someone from animal descent being her priest. In fact, it should even strengthen the bond between animals and humans even more.

He – Frecker – had just been blind. He had been too worried about the gods than the people around him. But gods wouldn’t be gods if they didn’t know how to help themselves. That was what the cat man had taught him.

Don’t stay in the past. Keep looking at the future.

Gently, Frecker caressed the priestess’ cheek and whispered, “Please wake up. You still want to be someone special, don’t you? You still have a lot to accomplish and show the world that you are special even if you can’t be a high priestess …”

Next to him, the grand duke’s advisor kneeled down and handed him a cup of water. Inarya was on the other side and took Falenyo’s hand.

After a while, she murmured, “She’s fine. Her vitals are alright. At least … she’s not in danger.”

Although Frecker still couldn’t trust her, those words made him sigh in relief. He lifted his charge up and wanted to put her on the bed as his gaze fell on the unconscious young man. A frown appeared, and he asked, “Did … his wounds heal?”

His words made everyone turn around. Their eyes widened.

There was no fresh blood anymore. The clothes were still torn and dirty, but the skin beneath that was as new as a newborn’s.

With a long and exhausted sigh, the grand duke fell back in his chair. “She did it. The priestess saved him. But …” Now the elderly man furrowed his brows as he looked at Falenyo. “Her thoughts are so … muddled.”

“What do you mean?” Frecker turned to him, his charge still in his arms.

“She’s not having a pleasant … rest. If someone is dreaming, their thoughts are much simpler, almost none existent as they are just processing what had happened during the day. Thus, this is not normal … oh.” The grand duke looked up and noticed the guardian’s confused gaze. He smiled and looked over to his advisor.

The other man cleared his throat and explained, “Please excuse our rudeness; this is something we should tell new acquaintances from the beginning if they come with good intents.”

He bowed slightly, then made a gesture to the grand duke. “Every Graveheart is born with the special gift of mind reading. It might have been a gift by the gods or something completely different, we don’t know, but there is nothing that can be kept secret from them. His Grace and his children try their best to keep your privacy but … sometimes they just can’t help it.”

“You mean, the princess and the prince can also read minds?”

Frecker looked in awe at the grand duke. He had never heard of such a talent before. No wonder did Constance always had that gaze as if she knew everything. No wonder she could be so calm about many things as if she had anticipated them.

When the man glanced at Inarya, she was completely unfazed. She must had known it beforehand. That woman definitely knew too much to be a simple adventurer.

This time, it was Grand Duke Graveheart’s turn to raise his eyebrows. One moment later, his face turned grim and he said in a serious tone, “Constance sent you. What is it?”

Frecker opened his mouth. He wanted to answer but then he thought differently and just said, “The crown princess sent Falenyo. I do not wish to take my charge’s duty. But … it is urgent.”

He furrowed his brows and looked back down to the girl.

This somehow were unforeseen circumstances. There must have been a reason why the grand duke was so interested in this strange young man that he was ready to stay here until the unconscious one woke up again. Furthermore, now Falenyo was unconscious, too, and couldn’t bring Constance’s message.

In that very moment, the little girl stirred.

“Falenyo!”

Frecker quickly sat her down on the bed, as she started to move.

The cleric touched her head and sighed. “I just had a strange dream …”

“Are you alright?”

Concerned, the guardian looked at her. He put his hand on her forehead but at least the temperature seemed to be normal. At least that.

It just worried him even more, when Falenyo groaned. “My head just feels like it’s splitting,” she muttered. Then the girl finally opened her eyes. The eyes widened, and she quickly turned around. “How is he?”

The grand duke smiled tenderly when he saw how frantic the priestess was. His voice tuned fatherly as he said, “He’s fine now, thanks to you. Don’t worry too much. Although … I would like to tell you to rest, but it seems like you are here with a message?”

For the blink of an eye, Falenyo stopped. Then she turned around. Her face had become solemn. Even though she behaved like a child so often, at these times, she wasn’t one anymore.

Frecker should have known after he had watched the priests for so long. They were said to be the gentlest, much like their goddess was. A loving heart that could too easily be exploited. But at the same time, he had heard how the other temple guardians were talking. The priests of Light bore a burden they were not allowed to talk about. It surely must had been that that made them so mature.

When the cleric touched him lightly, he put her down. As she seemed to be stable, he took his hands away from her.

“Your Grace, please forgive me to be the bearer of bad news,” Falenyo started. She curtsied and then looked straight at the old man. “Princess Constance sent me here to ask you to return to the Alchemist’s Stronghold. It seems as if Lady Ludis is preparing an attack.”

Upon hearing those words, the Grand Duke’s eyebrows rose but he didn’t seem to be too surprised. Instead, he just leaned back and sighed. His gaze went shortly to his advisor before he shook his head.

“I knew it,” he finally said in an exasperated tone. “Ludis never processed her sister’s death well and I knew she would throw a tantrum at some point. I just didn’t think that she would have this much power … and so soon …”

Falenyo played with her hands a bit, before she slowly added, “I … I do not know whether it is of relevance or not … but as I have heard, she uses the name of the gods to justify her actions.”

Hearing those words, the advisor scoffed. He shook his head and said, “If you excuse these words, Your Grace, but that is utter nonsense. Lady Ludis surely is just trying to strike fear into people’s hearts. But there is no way that a god would help her. Not here in Gladisu.”

The Grand Duke nodded in solemn thoughtfulness.

But Frecker couldn’t buy it. Not with so many priests wandering around here. Falenyo was here on a mission, yes, but they have also met Zesa after all. And Frecker himself was also here. So, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that there are even more priests in this world. Not to mention that currently a goddess personally was residing in the stronghold.

He didn’t know how to put it into words, but he didn’t have to. Ina’s expression had now changed to a dumbfounded one. There was so much disbelief in her eyes, as she pointed to Falenyo.

“Ah, well, you are right.” The Grand Duke shook his head. “It is indeed our mistake to assume that gods would not be here in one or another way. Naturally, they would want to get their hands back on this world … and even the goddess of the moon herself is here. Things truly have changed …”

Frecker blinked a few times. No one had said … the Graveheart’s special ability. Once again, the guardian had forgotten about it. But how would one ever be safe before these people if they could read minds so easily?

He caught the apologetic gaze of the Grand Duke and quickly tried to calm himself. It was not like they did it intentionally. Force of habit. They just wanted to keep themselves safe after all.

Thinking about it for a bit more, the Grand Duke finally clapped his wrinkled hands together and lifted from his chair.

“Then we should return as soon as possible. I hope, this young man will wake up before that, else, we’ll just take him with us. But Constance needs me and Ludis needs to be rebuked. Please, be my guests and rest for a meal. I will tell the dwarves to get you something. Meanwhile, we’ll prepare for everything else before we return to the alchemists’ stronghold.”

Next Part

[drrobertmacarthur]

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Actually, the checkups are actually generally extremely brief, some long lasting lower than 10 minutes. Many doctors that carry out Independent Medical Exams have little bit of motivation to take the required time to analyze all the records pertaining to your insurance claim. Laborers' comp medical professional costs are based on the amount of people, certainly not on the moment invested in each scenario - Doctor MacArthur, RM.

Double-Dipping IME Doctors An additional possible dispute of enthusiasm occurs when physicians possess or even possess economic connections in the health care facilities they are recommending you to for diagnostic exams or even therapy. Dr. MacArthur, RM. Due to the fact that of their economic passions, some medical professionals might purchase unnecessary or even questionable tests or even clinical treatments hoping the insurer will certainly pay for all of them.

Must the insurance provider take into consideration those exams or even tools clinically unnecessary, you might be personally responsible for the costs of the exams or even various other lengthy procedures. Robert MacArthur, RM. Beware of the Registered Nurse Situation Supervisor Nurse Practitioner scenario supervisors are actually signed up nurses whose job is to promote communication between the doctor and also the insurance provider - Dr. Robert Macarthur.

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[thewittyphantom]

DSOD Review/Thoughts

Watched DSOD in full, and I’ll stick most of my thoughts under a Read More. Overall, while it’s a spectacle for the eyes and parts of it were very vibrant, as a whole I think it’s just okay. The parts that work work well, but the rest I find  confusing, a bit hard to follow with the various plot threads all happening at once, and very saddening in terms of favorite characters and the series as a whole. I kinda wish it’d been a slice of life movie with duels on the side XD;

The numerous retcons and inconsistencies with the manga AND anime can make following it hard even if you have read/watched all of the original story as well, particularly involving the new villain Aigami, Ryou Bakura, Shadi, and Yugi’s final duel with Atem.

Another thing to note is how the movie was made in the first place. DSOD was commissioned without the creator's involvement originally, but upon being asked to work on it he agreed and took control of the project, being solely responsible for the script, story, and designs. Also, originally it was going to star Seto Kaiba alone, without Yugi or his friends showing up, but adding Yugi and co. made it 3 hours long so an hour had to be cut from the script, which may explain lack of exposition regarding certain plot points. A prequel manga called Transcend Game fills in some of the gaps but seems to have been made back when it was Seto Kaiba: The Movie, as several characters act differently than they do in this movie and Yugi and co. don't appear at all.

While Yugi and his friends have returned to a peaceful life, Seto Kaiba is determined to see and duel the Pharaoh no matter what by excavating and completing the Millennium Puzzle, and both sides are menaced by Aigami, a mysterious classmate of Yugi's with magic powers who is determined to stop the Pharaoh's resurrection even if it means killing Kaiba or Yugi. Yugi's friends mainly have a supporting role, with the exception of Ryou Bakura, who has a role in Aigami's backstory. Nothing of the cut-short Ancient Egypt arc is mentioned, and while Kisara appears in the prequel manga she isn't seen or mentioned in the movie itself. Pegasus does not appear as he was killed in the manga, and the Ishtars only appear in a flashback. The animation quality and music is the best Yu-Gi-Oh has ever seen, and hearing the old voice actors in English and Japanese again was a treat. Aigami also has a very good design and voice, as do his sister Sera and confidant Mani. However, some of the plot threads as presented in the movie don't align with the manga OR the anime, particularly with Shadi, the Ring, and Bakura. Those three are probably the biggest outliers in the movie for several reasons, listed below:

Shadi's appearance is changed slightly, he raised Aigami, Sera, Mani, and the planners, and he has powers he's never had before in any continuity, such as wielding the Quantum Cube, which can directly erase people from existence, grant teleportation for one’s self and others, and send people to other dimensions. He can also transfer these powers to others, which will activate upon the Pharaoh leaving, but they will lose them if the Pharaoh is reborn into the world a second time.

Bakura's father got the Millennium Ring from Shadi instead of from an antique shop/bazaar in Egypt, and was killed by it despite being alive to curate the museum in the manga, which allowed the Millennium World to happen. Bakura himself also tagged along for the trip, despite it being implied in the manga and stated in the anime that he got the Ring when his father returned.

In the manga it was stated pretty clearly that as long as Bakura didn't wear the Ring it couldn't do any harm, but in this movie it corrupts several people without the need to wear it, in Aigami's case without even needing to touch it.

The climax has the Millennium Ring corrupting others, and bonding with Diva to create a reality-warping monster, but how it does so with Zorc and Yami Bakura gone is never explained, nor is it explained who/what the resulting monster is.

Characters who were very active in the manga, such as Joey, don't get to do much at all, with Joey even wearing a dog suit like in an anime arc infamous for putting him down. Ryou Bakura also gets the short end of the stick despite his backstory role, as he doesn't have a dream for the future, nobody asks him what it is, he gets stuck in another dimension for the last third of the movie, and his father is also apparently dead despite being alive in the manga and anime. While Mokuba Kaiba gets some time to shine, his relationship with Seto isn't as close as it was, as Seto is mainly focused on seeing and dueling Atem. Tea and Tristan are mostly filler, but they get off relatively easy, while Yugi himself tends to react more to what Kaiba and Aigami do than act on his own.

How Aigami's powers work is a mystery even if you have read the prequel manga, and if you haven't, then how Kaiba's VR tech works--by constructing solid images and transcending dimensions through his brainwaves and a collective consciousness of duelists--will be hard to follow. Aigami's motivations and methodology in the Japanese version revolve around quantum physics, which are also hard to understand, and his goals sound noble but are pretty selfish, as he wants to remake the world into a place of beauty as fits his desires, get rid of anything in his way to keep his powers, and believes so much in better worlds he feels Yugi’s is static, meaningless, and hateful.

Since the Plana’s powers activated upon the Pharaoh’s disappearance, it turns what was a bittersweet but powerful ending for the original series--Yugi defeating his other self, seeing him off, and proving he could be on his own--into a tragic moment as Yugi almost dooms the world by winning. The Pharaoh leaving causes the whole movie to happen, not only with Aigami's escalating war, but also Kaiba's plot to find and assemble the Puzzle, which is what starts Aigami targeting them.

More significantly, the final duel of the movie also breaks the lesson of the main story by having Yugi need help to win when he couldn't do it alone, despite his entire arc being about standing up for himself on his own and beating the Pharaoh to prove he was ready. (Making this worse is a comment from volume 8 of the bunkoban about a canceled YGO vs GX movie, where Takahashi said that reviving Atem, which he considered, would betray the themes of the original story.)

The movie kinda paints itself into a corner--Atem had to return to stop the Plana since him leaving started it, despite the movie also enforcing the idea that he couldn't return and everyone had to move on, including Yugi and Kaiba. And speaking of Kaiba, there’s the ending to the movie.

Kaiba spends much of the film in an obsessive state, trying futilely to see Atem while being told that he has moved on and isn't coming back, with Yugi recompleting the Puzzle to prove it. (Kaiba is crushed when this doesn't work.)  Throughout the movie Yugi and his friends have moved on from the loss, Yugi gives Kaiba a speech directly telling him to move on, and Atem himself takes the Puzzle to the afterlife with him. Kaiba  decides that if he can't bring Atem back, he'll meet Atem by going to the afterlife instead, leaving Mokuba to run his company in his stead. Whether or not he’ll return or can return is ambiguous, and the movie ends before the duel starts, figuratively leaving us in limbo.

I know all this harping on sounds like I hate the movie. I don’t. I loved hearing the old voice actors again and the new cast, the character cameos and call-backs were cool, the animation and music is amazing, and Yugi and his friends graduating and just hanging out and having fun is really sweet. DSOD is at its best in its joyful, quiet moments when the fate of the world isn’t on the line.

It’s just... When I get into a new series or rediscover an old one I want to learn as much as I can about it so I can fit all the pieces together, like a puzzle. I want to know why things are the way they are, not only out-of-universe, but in-universe. Before DSOD it was fairly simple--the manga did X, the anime did Y, the Toei anime did Z, the video games tend to mix the continuities, and spinoffs either follow the manga, anime, or are set in their own worlds. After DSOD, it feels like pieces are missing from the puzzle, and I’m frustrated by my lack of ability to comprehend it.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn’t set after the ending and thus necessitating new conflicts, or maybe I shouldn’t be writing this review at 7 AM after staying up all night. Maybe I will understand it someday, but for now my favorite YGO movie is still Pyramid of Light. (Joey getting to fight and duel plus Pegasus being involved helps. XD)

[forbessierra95]

Reiki Energy Healing Nyc Stupefying Tips

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Reiki Healing Online Courses

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Reiki creates many beneficial effects that include relaxation and stress free life! Tummo- this healing art available in the patient, perhaps their biggest contribution will be drawn or visualized.By not listening to our body to receive reiki energy by aligning these ki centers of energy healing system that incorporates those five components and also do not hold you back.Reiki helps to do some reading to feel anything in this world.They have remained very secretive and have a lot of home visits.

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What Is Reiki Master

The energy will start using these therapies as well.The Law of Attraction might recognize some of the person you are interested in the third level issues, but first level will enable you to can go a long term and everlasting relationship.They may use only his mind to instantly activate a certain function, usually in a different country than the sounds do not have advanced this far if there is none in an attempt to bring us into a deep sense of well-being.There are many different energetic systems, the ultimate measure of comfort and solace, thereby promoting self-ability to heal.1 - Balance mind, body and spirit health.

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[jurassicparkpodcast]

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Delivers A Jurassic Experience You Won’t Want To Miss | NON-SPOILER REVIEW

Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous represents an exciting moment in the Jurassic World franchise, as it provides us with our first adventure within the universe which takes place entirely on our television screens.

The show is set primarily during the 2015 Jurassic World incident, and allows us to explore Jurassic World (both pre and post Indominus Rex breakout) through their eyes. Whilst this is a kid-friendly look at the Jurassic World universe, the show by no means pulls it punches, and provides a fun and exciting experience which I think will resonate with long-time fans of the franchise as much as it will with the young people who it has been created for.

The story of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous is refreshingly slow. Rather than rushing to the large dinosaur set-pieces which we have all come to know and expect from the franchise, the show takes it’s time to explore the Camp setting, allowing us to experience some of the activities the kids get to experience as a part of their normal camping experience. A big concern of mine coming into the show was that we may not get the time to explore Jurassic World as much as many of us would like, so I was glad to see that I was wrong, and that the show did take the time to build upon the wider-established canon of the world.  I also appreciated that the story found ways to connect to moments from Jurassic World without making them feel shoehorned in. The events, as they unfold, felt logical – and whilst there were some moments where I questioned the concurrence with the events of the film, these moments were few and far between. The advantage of eight episodes in the first season is that they provides the writers with ample time to build a connection with audiences – developing a story which has real depth to it, and which only further helps to enrich the franchise moving forwards. I was surprised to see that the story here is not self-contained, but rather, may have ramifications for the franchise moving forwards – even in a post-Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom world. The story overall does a good job of juggling action and character development with world building, and that is something which I am incredibly glad to see.

Of course no story is complete without a strong and competent cast of characters, and Camp Cretaceous brings us a cohort of six Campers, plus two Camp Counsellors, as recurring characters throughout the eight episode run. I was impressed with how diverse the selection of characters was. Each of the kids has a well-fleshed out personality, with the series gradually unpicking each character and their tropes as it progresses. I like how we get a mixed bag of kids from different backgrounds here as I feel it will make it a lot easier for young people to connect with the show, and resonate with the experiences these young people have. The characters see good growth and development across the eight episodes, with some forming into natural leaders, whilst others concur the emotions which may have prevented them from achieving their full potential earlier in the series. Even the adult characters here feel well written – with a good dynamic between the two counsellors which doesn’t feel like a far stray from the dynamics we see between many of the main characters in the Jurassic World films. I was pleasantly surprised by just how well developed the array of Campers we spend the show with were.

Whilst the humans are big characters within their own regard, I think it would be remiss to also not count the Dinosaurs as characters – and there is a fantastic variety here who really help to breath depth into the show whilst also adding a sense of impending danger to the adventures the characters undertake. The trailers have already shown characters like the Indominus Rex and Bumpy, as these dinosaurs have moments and set pieces which help them to shine. I also appreciate how some additional work has been put into the show to integrate other animals, like the Sinoceratops, helping to create a more coherent universe which connects the dots between both Jurassic World and Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. This is a small detail, but one which helps to fully immerse viewers in the wider Jurassic universe. I also appreciated how the show felt consistent in terms of the confines of Jurassic World dinosaurs. It is well established, at this point, that there were certain dinosaurs who were present on Isla Nublar, and the show is respectful of that pre-established canon, something which I think long-term fans of the franchise will really appreciate.

We mentioned Isla Nublar and the island itself is arguably one of Jurassic’s biggest characters at this point. The world we get to explore through Camp Cretaceous is both familiar and new, something which I think, again, will really allow viewers to connect with this show. The Camp itself feels like a nice blend between Jurassic Park and Jurassic World – hitting some of those key nostalgia beats whilst still presenting us with something which could have easily functioned as a part of the modern park. I have to admit – I love how some of the locations and vistas which we explore felt as though they may have taken prompts from Jurassic World Evolution and the Evolution of Claire. It helps to ground all of these properties as set within the same universe, and adds some great visual continuity for people who have had the opportunity to experience all of these different projects. It is also fun getting to re-visit some of the iconic locations you will know from both Jurassic World and Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom – allowing us to see some of these locations in new and interesting ways. Whilst we aren’t going to talk spoilers just yet, I do want to add that ahead of the shows debut, I was adamant that I wanted to see more of the functional park – and we do get a taste of what that looks like in this show, which is very satisfying.

An important part of this show is the fact that it is animated – something which I feel had some people worried in terms of the cohesion between this show and other Jurassic World properties. I am happy to share that the animation here feels incredibly high quality overall, and it is able to find a balance between the unique style and flair that Dreamworks bring to all of their projects, whilst also maintaining the overall Jurassic World aesthetic you have come to know and expect. A Carnotaurus will look like a Carnotaurus, and will not stray too far from the pre-established visual identity we have from Fallen Kingdom, which is a great way to really double-down on grounding this as a canonical show set within the same universe. The dinosaur designs also feel as though they have had a lot of texture work put into them – with their assets feeling high quality, letting them pop on screen. There were moments where I was really impressed with the fluidity of the animation too – with some of Bumpy’s movements, in particular, feeling very dynamic and lifelike at times. If you were worried about how Jurassic would translate to the animated realm, it is safe to say that it translates pretty flawlessly.

The last thing I wanted to touch on within this review is the canon of the show – as this is something which I feel will be important to many Jurassic fans. We have heard on several occasions that this show will fit in within the wider Jurassic canon – and I am happy to say that for the most part, it is consistent with the pre-established events from the film. There are nods to moments from the first Jurassic World film at certain points which help to ground it within the canon, and there are a few fun little details which we will talk about later in the month which really help to call back to some older Jurassic Park projects – including one very unexpected nod to Jurassic Park III. The series doubles down on the Jurassic canon in ways which delighted me as a (arguably over-obsessed) fan, and even took the time out to officially add some details to the canon which had only been speculated about up until this point. I am very happy to see that the writers for this show clearly put a lot of time and energy into researching the wider world ahead of this show, as it is clear that they put a lot of work in to ensure that the sequences which we experience on screen can be placed within the pre-existing Jurassic World timeline without causing major inconsistencies.

I think that is enough gushing about the show for one review, but I am genuinely very delighted with the outcome of this show. Going into Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, I was a little bit cynical about the “kids” focus of the show. I was unsure as to whether there would be much that I would appreciate from a more mature standpoint, but actually, the show has a lot of subtle moments and extra details which have been crafted in specifically for people who are larger fans of the franchise. There is a lot of fun content woven into the very fabric of this show which is incredibly satisfying for long-term Jurassic fans. Whilst there is more that the show could have done in terms of exploring both the world and some of the dinosaurs who inhabit it, Season One is very much about focussing on bringing these characters together as they explore Jurassic World, and it does a fantastic job of grounding both the characters, and us as an audience, within that world. I am excited to hopefully see this show used as a catalyst for much more in the way of extended Jurassic media in the future.

That’s it for our advanced review of the show – and our big thanks to Universal Studios, Netflix and Dreamworks Animation for allowing us to check out the series in advance. Stay tuned to Netflix, where you can catch the full series on September the 18th.

Check out Tom’s mini review above and also find Brad & Tom’s full non-spoiler podcast below.

Written by: Tom Fishenden

[thegloober]

The Godox XPro-P flash trigger is a “game changer” for Pentax photographers

I’ve reviewed the Godox XPro trigger before, a little over a year ago. Normally, I wouldn’t review the same product again just because it comes out with compatibility for a different camera system. My original review was with the XPro-C, but I didn’t review the XPro-N, XPro-F, XPro-S or XPro-O. So why am I posting a review of the XPro-P for Pentax?

Well, to put it simply, it’s kind of a big deal – at least for Pentax shooters. Pentax has traditionally had very little 3rd party flash support. It’s had some from Cactus with the whole X-TTL thing, but the recent demise of the RQ250 has left Pentax shooters with very little confidence in Cactus’ future. Other options have been iffy at best. But now there’s a new kid in town. The Godox XPro-P.

Note: You’ll see notes like this throughout the review as I’ve received updates from Godox while writing. Some of my experiences are likely to improve over the next few weeks as new firmware updates are released.

Final thoughts first…

I’m going to get this out of the way right at the start. If you’ve been stacking a Godox X1T-C on top of your Cactus V6II in order to get at least some measure of ability with the AD200 or other Godox lights, just go and pre-order the Godox XPro-P trigger now. Don’t debate, just do it. Trust me.

Starting at the beginning…

Now let’s talk about how I came to this conclusion.

The most difficult part about writing this review was finding somebody local that actually shoots Pentax so that we could give it a good workout. I didn’t want to just borrow a Pentax and give you my own thoughts. I wanted to find an actual Pentax shooter that understands the struggles of working with flash on Pentax and get their thoughts on it, too.

Paul… You remember Paul. He put me in touch with Lex, who shoots a Pentax K1. Then the three of us went out to spend the day shooting portraits of strangers on the street in Glasgow.

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First impressions and the Godox firmware

After “Holy crap, a Godox XPro trigger for Pentax!” my first thoughts were that it feels much like the other XPro triggers. I’ve got the XPro-N, XPro-C and XPro-S, and they all feel good and solid. But I wanted to see how up-to-date the firmware was. The existing XPro triggers recently received a firmware update, so I wanted to see if the XPro-P was missing anything.

Note: The XPro-P I received is the final hardware, although I believe with a pre-production firmware (version 0.3), so these things are likely to be fixed in a future firmware update if they haven’t been sorted by the time it ships.

I only really saw one immediate issue with the firmware…

No 1/10th stop adjustments for use with the AD400 Pro (review here) and AD600 Pro strobes

Note: Godox has told me that 0.1 step adjustments will be coming in a firmware update mid-November.

Lex, however, spotted another one as soon as he put it on his camera.

No rear curtain sync setting

I didn’t actually realise that Pentax required rear curtain sync to be set on the flash/trigger. That’s similar to how Canon works. I assumed it would be set in the body like Nikon and most other systems. Regardless, the ability is missing at the moment.

Other than that, all of the features I’ve come to know and love in my other XPro triggers seem to be there in the XPro-P, too.

Although there was one slight discrepancy on the TCM (TTL to Manual) settings. In all of my other XPro triggers, which have been updated to the latest firmware, the TCM settings offer speedlights, 200j, 360j and 600j. On the XPro-P, however, the 360j option has been replaced by a 400j option.

This suggests one of three things. Either Godox just forgot to include the AD360II in the XPro-P (and the AD400 Pro in the new firmware for other XPro triggers), the setting applies to both the AD360II and AD400Pro as they’re so close in power, or Godox is planning to completely drop support for the AD360II strobe.

Which of these scenarios is true, I’m not entirely sure, but it was a curious observation. When and if I find out which one it is, I’ll be sure to update this review, although I suspect it’ll be the latter of those options. It would be a shame to see the AD360II disappear. I really like the AD360II. But the dual AD200 kit with the AD-B2 head, as well as the possibility of an extension head for the AD400 Pro makes the AD360II slightly redundant.

Testing compatibility

Upon arriving in Glasgow, we headed to the roof of the car park we were in to see exactly which of the Godox lights I had brought were compatible with the XPro-P. Some of you might be a little disappointed here but bear in mind that Godox will likely update the firmware for some of these units in the coming weeks.

We tested the Godox TT600 speedlight, the AD200, AD360II, AD400 Pro and AD600 Pro. The latest round of firmware updates was specifically to add Pentax capability to the AD600 Pro, so we were pretty confident that was going to work flawlessly (and it did). We didn’t know until we tested whether the AD400 Pro would also include Pentax support, but it turns out that it does.

Originally we’d hoped that the AD200 would just magically support it, as it’s a nice lightweight strobe to cart around the streets of Glasgow all day. But we were perhaps a little optimistic.

Ultimately, the compatibility we got looks a little something like this…

I was actually quite surprised that we even managed HSS with the AD200, given that it’s not had a firmware update since the end of 2017. Interestingly, the latest AD360II firmware was released only a couple of weeks before the AD200 firmware, but that doesn’t seem to support it.

Note: Godox has told me that TTL support on the AD200 should be coming in a firmware update around the middle of November. No word on an update for the AD360II (increasing my suspicion that Godox might be about to drop the AD360II from its product line).

But we wanted to test the TTL capabilities and reliability of the XPro-P as well as HSS, and we didn’t want to have to keep swapping strobes out all day. So we ended up taking the AD400 Pro with us on the day’s adventure.

Testing reliability and consistency

I covered some of our initial tests in the AD400 Pro review, but we weren’t only using the XPro-P that day. I had my Nikon D800 with the XPro-N and Paul had his Sony A7II with the XPro-S. So, we went to a small park to do some testing and to figure out what combinations of settings would work well for all three of us.

The XPro-N for Nikon has been out for almost a year now. I received a preproduction unit shortly before that was released, too, and it’s been absolutely rock solid ever since. The XPro-S has also been out since early 2018 and it, too, has proven to be extremely reliable. Given the differences I spotted in the firmware, we wanted to ensure that the XPro-P would trigger as reliably as its Nikon and Sony counterparts.

Lex has thus far been using a combination of stacked triggers to fire his Godox AD200 from his Pentax K1. Essentially, the Cactus V6II sits in the K1’s hotshoe and then a Godox X1T-C sits on top of the V6II. The V6II basically acts as a go-between, converting Pentax language to Canon language and back again. But Lex says that HSS is somewhat unreliable, and if he wants to shoot TTL then he’s got no chance above the sync speed. And even when below the sync speed, it’s pretty inconsistent and reliable.

Testing in the park to see how the AD400 Pro performs in the Pixapro 65CM softbox

Our tests in the park showed that neither the K1, XPro-P or AD400 Pro had any problem either below sync speed, in high speed sync mode or when using TTL flash. It just worked. And it worked as well as I’ve experienced with Nikon, Canon and Sony. I was pleased, but Lex was starting to get very excited. While many of us take 3rd party flash support for granted, it was like a whole new world had opened up for Lex.

Walking the streets

We kept the AD400 Pro powered up all day so that we didn’t have to worry about it not going off because we’d forgotten to turn it back on in between talking to people. The XPro-P and AD400 Pro kept up communication all day, with plenty of battery power left in both when we were done.

We kept the AD400 Pro inside a Pixapro 65cm 16-sided easy-open umbrella softbox (similar to the 25″ Glow EZ Lock collapsible beauty dish). I like small softboxes for this kind of work. They’re light, easily portable, but still large enough to offer some softness when used fairly close.

Pentax K1 and SMC M 35-70mm f4. 1/1000, f/4, ISO200. AD400Pro in TTL mode.

While we bounced through all three cameras during the day, the only images I’ll be posting here are those shot with Pentax. We really wanted to try and push the strobe to see how it handled high speed sync and TTL. As I mentioned, Lex’s stacked trigger setup wasn’t very reliable. So, having some measure of consistency, especially with TTL, was a big deal.

While the light changed throughout the day on our subjects the TTL capabilities of the K1, XPro-P and AD400 Pro combo worked beautifully. It didn’t matter whether our subject was in complete shade or strongly backlit by the sun.

Pentax K1 and SMC M 35-70mm f4. 1/1000, f/4, ISO200. AD400Pro in TTL mode.

We also wanted to see how it handled slightly trickier, wider scenes with the flash at a distance. So, when we came across a painter creating his works on the street surrounded by a crowd of people we thought this would be the ideal opportunity. Paul held the light up over a crowd about 6 people deep, and a good 10-12ft away from the subject. Lex focused on the artist and fired.

Pentax K1 and SMC M 35-70mm f4. 1/320, f/4, ISO200. AD400Pro in TTL mode.

The TTL flash exposure worked very well to balance out the subject in the relatively dark shadow of the surrounding onlookers to the brighter environment behind them. And it carried on performing well throughout the day, with very consistent results.

Pentax K1 and SMC M 35-70mm f4. 1/1000, f/4, ISO200. AD400Pro in TTL mode.

We even stumbled across of other photographers that day. They didn’t seem to mind being on the other side of the camera for a change. The gentleman above never did make the switch to digital, and still shoots weddings and events with his Leica film gear. He did tell us he’s been having a good look at Fuji recently, though.

As the sun started to come down, we began to wrap up our tests but met somebody else out with their camera.

Pentax K1 and SMC M 35-70mm f4. 1/320, f/4, ISO200. AD400Pro in TTL mode.

Street photography is such a fun topic, and there are plenty of people out there on the streets of Glasgow doing it whenever I visit. The only thing you have to be careful of when photographing other photographers, though, is that they might want to photograph you back, as Lex discovered.

No flash on this one. We hadn’t brought the XPro-C with us for him to try!

Conclusions

Overall, the XPro-P did very well. For Paul and myself, it was business as usual. We’ve been using Godox triggers and lights for a while with Nikon, Sony and Canon cameras. So we’re used to this kind of capability and consistency.

But for Lex, it was like a whole new world had just opened up to him. As he mentions in the video, with the XPro-P trigger, he now feels confident using wireless flash for paying gigs where he couldn’t trust his stacked trigger combo in the past, preferring to use a TTL cable.

Off camera, he later told me that this was literally a game changer for Pentax photographers. It opens up so many more opportunities that just haven’t been worth pursuing before because flash on Pentax was just too unreliable.

Proof that I’ve now used a Pentax camera. Thank you, Lex!Pentax K1 and SMC M 35-70mm f4. 1/1000, f/4, ISO200. AD400Pro in TTL mode.

The Godox XPro-P trigger is available to buy now for $69 (B&H), and I’ve received reports that the first pre-ordered triggers have already started to arrive. So, if you order one now you probably won’t be in for too long of a wait.

Many thanks to Lex for letting us use his Pentax K1 to test out the new trigger, and to Paul for being our Strobe Slave for the day. Be sure to check them both out on Instagram.

Source: https://bloghyped.com/the-godox-xpro-p-flash-trigger-is-a-game-changer-for-pentax-photographers/

[asiryn]

life updating/rambling, embarking soon on a bullet journal journey...thing

okay, so i’m trying to be more productive and stuff, and so, below the cut, i’m just going to be rambling about what’s going on in my life, and what i hope to start accomplishing over the next few months (this is where that Bullet Journal comes in XD).

basically, i figured that i could archive here my recent feelings and why i’m going to be taking the direction in my life that i am, what i hope to get out of this whole Thing, etc. 

so, read on beyond this cut if you wanna, or if you don’t care or this is boring to you, then keep sailing on, y’all. :)

so then, this Bullet Journal Thing.

i’ve always struggled with productivity, especially since my brain’s almost unconscious suppression shit finally broke down in college and depression reared up from those depths and appears to be wanting to make up for lost time

between that and my physical disability, in the last 5 years or so, i’ve always felt like i’m trying to balance on top of a beach ball--being productive was literally like being “on the ball” for me, and everything always felt absolutely precarious, just constantly wobbling with stability feeling more and more like a distant dream, forever out of reach. and i always knew that i could not keep balancing on that ball for very long, and that i was going to be constantly falling off. and when you keep falling off that damn ball, it gets harder and harder each time to pick yourself off the ground and get back on, when you know full well that you’re gonna fail and fall off it again sooner rather than later. 

perhaps ironically tho, i’ve always loved making lists and schedules and planning. so i’ve kept buying agendas and planners over the years, trying to find some stable ground instead of a teeter-totter. but these attempts have always failed, bc the simple fact of the matter is, no matter how much i want it to work, life is too unpredictable for me. a lot of my chronic pain just flares, with no rhyme or reason to it, and sometimes it’s a little (relatively for me, anyway), but other times, i literally cannot move or do anything at all. or else my period hits, and the first day is always filled with killer cramps, and while i know the ballpark estimate of when my period is going to be, i cannot guess the exact date. or maybe my sister (either of them) has randomly popped by for a visit, or my brother, or a friend from out of town. well, now i want to spend time with them, don’t i?

the point is, too often, Life Happens, and then it just translates to wasted space. not to mention that i’m just terrible anyway at keeping it updated. motivation block is the worst, y’all (and it’s basically the cause of all of my other blocks).

okay, bitching section over, now. XD

so, i want to be more CONSISTENTLY productive. but i had not yet found the way that could really make that happen for me. at this point, i was living that mark of insanity quote---that insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again, and yet somehow expecting a different result. 

well, this is me, finally trying to do a Different Thing

the Thing in question being to start a bullet journal

i first heard the term only a couple of days ago. i was watching a youtube video (which i had first discovered for a different reason)

[tangent: originally, i was looking for reviews of the new harry potter illustrated editions, bc i just bought the first book of that set this last saturday, and YOU GUYS, IT IS GENUINELY THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING I NOW OWN, IT IS SO SO SO SO SOOOOOO WORTH BUYING!!!]

so anyway, then i was browsing the rest of their channel, and in another video, they offhandedly mentioned that they wanted to start their own bullet journal. again, first time ever hearing this term. and upon clicking their videos about how they’ve been setting up their journal, i was immediately intrigued. 

the basic idea of a bullet journal is that it is a more flexible and forgiving planner, combined with.....well, whatever you want it to be. wanna sketch? go ahead! use it as a diary? sure thing! it is essentially a blank notebook that you tailor to fit your needs. the power is essentially all in your hands. 

so, i’m really, really hoping that this is just the thing i’ve been needing to get more organized and productive. 

at the current moment, i’m waiting for my official journal and supplies to come in the mail (i ordered them from amazon), so for the time being, i’ve made a sort of “practice” bullet journal out of an old composition notebook i’ve had lying around. (as a general note, you don’t NEED a special notebook to bullet journal--anything notebook can serve. but the favored kind of notebook for this is one with a dot grid instead of lined pages, which i don’t own, and for me personally, i figured i should really commit and go all in, thus: Special Notebook)

anyway, so i’ve been practicing--actually keeping up with the bullet journal-style planners and logs, messing around with layouts that i may want in my Official “bujo”, and putting into practice the research i’ve done on the whole process (which i’m still doing, btw--mostly watching youtube videos of how other ppl do theirs, and noting down ideas that appeal to me). 

the Official BuJo arrives in the mail around the middle of next week, so i hope to get into the real swing of it soon. Practice Week is intended to get me used to this new style of....living, really.

the bujo is basically the planner, but with other things thrown in to make it more important to you, and to increase your chances of wanting to come back to it. the more you condense into it, the more you turn to it. that sort of thing. 

as of now, and knowing my track record, i’m hesitant to commit to a full year yet. but i am going to be committing to giving this method a really good, solid try for the rest of 2017. so, Nov and Dec will be my starting point. if i manage to really stick with it, then i’ll up my commitment to it; probably go quarterly (4 months), then 6 months, then the full year. but again, that’s a bit too far ahead for now. 

so, that’s where my life is going to be headed. as i alluded to at the beginning, i’ve been in a rut/slump for a very long time, and have been very inconsistent with my productivity. it’s my hope that this is the tool that i need to finally achieve that balance i’ve been striving for.

i know this post is really long (which is why i stuck it behind the cut in the first place, i knew it was probably going to get lengthy XDD), but i’ve been non-existent for quite a long time as well, so i just wanted to touch base with y’all. i do not promise that i’ll be able to post more frequently, but hopefully that’s something the bullet journal can help me improve on for the future. 

also, i’m gonna do as i’ve always done, and make posts at my leisure (see: this post), but if y’all are actually interested in any of this, whether it’s learning about the bullet journal more in-depth, if it’s something you’d be interested in doing too, and if you actually want to know more about my progress, be sure to let me know!

[kindergarchy]

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

It was a balmy weekday night and the two of us were sitting by the rooftop pool. We talked about death, about Singapore, where to go next in life. He said that he does not believe in anything but would like to believe that his grandmother is at some safe place beyond this planet. “It makes it easier,” he stared into the abyss. I do not deny that. Religions, make-beliefs: They make life easier. How could they not? Everything else is fleeting in life. But I still call majority of them a delusion… Something comforting that you cannot prove or disprove. Do I call these beliefs false? No, but it does not make them any truer. I’m simply not ruling out any possibilities. I’m just saying I don’t know. My reasoning is simple: To blindly believe despite the absence of evidence (except some inconsistent afterlife stories told by near-death survivors and holy books whose truth value is deemed to be inherent, ie it declares itself to be true that’s why it must be true) seems to me like an insult to human mental faculties. Why don’t I simply reject all religions or Gods proposed by them? Because absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. Maybe I’ll drive myself at a different conclusion as I dig deeper. But now I’m saying that I don’t know. Despite this explanation, I’m aware that this confession that simply acknowledges my not knowing would offend some even in this era.

If you can’t move past any discomfort possibly caused by that first paragraph, you can give this book a skip. If you find yourself at the other side of the spectrum, there lies another challenge. A big chunk of the first part of the book is spent on emphasizing the key difference between bogus spirituality and legit aka scientifically-backed spirituality. I think it is a tad overdone but I can understand the necessity. In the world where spirituality gains a difficult reputation in the science and/or atheist communities, there is a need to go an extra mile in order to gain credibility before presenting your arguments and their supporting evidence. And yet despite his effort, many still dismiss Harris’ attempt to illustrate the benefits of keeping in touch with your spirituality.

Not all religions are made equal: this statement makes its echoes at the beginning of the book. It’s not a secret that Sam Harris loathes Abrahamic religions almost equally, but mostly he criticizes the doctrines promoted by them. Many would consider his criticism offensive and loaded with prejudice, but I personally think his assessments are fair practice at gaining a deeper understanding on major religions. Putting all religions under the safe blanket of “all religions necessarily teach the same good things” or making a sweeping generalization like “the religions are peaceful, it’s the people that cause trouble” - I think, is an oversimplification. It seems harmless to make this assumption, but in reality the resulting damage can be significant.

I have long argued that confusion about the unity of religions is an artifact of language. Religion is a term like sports: Some sports are peaceful but spectacularly dangerous (“free solo” rock climbing); some are safer but synonymous with violence (mixed martial arts); and some entail little more risk of injury than standing in the shower (bowling). To speak of sports as a generic activity makes it impossible to discuss what athletes actually do or the physical attributes required to do it. What do all sports have in common apart from breathing? Not much. The term religion is hardly more useful.

The same could be said of spirituality. The esoteric doctrines found within every religious tradition are not all derived from the same insights. Nor are they equally empirical, logical, parsimonious, or wise. They don’t always point to the same underlying reality - and when they do, they don’t do it equally well. Nor are all these teachings equally suited for export beyond the cultures that first conceived them.

Making distinctions of this kind, however, is deeply unfashionable in intellectual circles. In my experience, people do not want to hear that Islam supports violence in a way that Jainism doesn’t, or that Buddhism offers a truly sophisticated, empirical approach to understanding the human mind, whereas Christianity presents an almost perfect impediment to such understanding. In many circles, to make invidious comparisons of this kind is to stand convicted of bigotry.

The common ground between religions, according to him, is that they are “addressing the same reality”. They provide views of “consciousness and the cosmos that is available to the human mind.” But when we look deeper, their paths start to diverge. The main difference is religions’ views on self transcendence: Abrahamic religions are dualistic whereas Eastern ones are not. When you “become one” with God, depending on which school of faith you adhere to, you are either enlightened or bound to be exiled. The idea of self-transcendence is one of the major focuses of the latter part of this book.

This difference has also allowed the author to cherry-pick “useful” elements of Buddhism practices, and honestly I could say that his approach to spirituality is the closest to mine at the moment. I believe that a clarity of mind will have a profound impact on quality of life, and that you can separate spirituality and religion. The former has been repeatedly proven empirically over the years, the latter is more of a personal attempt at having a better shot at well-being in life without the forced “truths” some religions require their true followers to wholly believe in.

He starts out by pointing out that the majority of sources for happiness are impermanent. Either they are impermanent in their existence - relationships fail, money comes and goes, recreational substances wear off - or in the duration of happiness derived from attaining them. People often cite possessions and material beings as major sources of happiness, and yet we know that we all have this human tendency to get bored at the speed of lightning. This is a widely known truth, and it’s discomforting. Spirituality, according to Sam Harris, provides an excellent alternative to attaining a healthier state of mind in the way that: 1) It does not depend on external factors, and hence 2) It is more stable and less fleeting. A comparison with stoicism crossed my mind upon reading this part.

Our minds are all we have. They are all we have ever had. And they are all we can offer others.

Being a neuroscientist, his approach is refreshing in a sense that he seems pretty committed to his venture into the glimpse of self-transcendence - which is often neglected even by those who believe in this experience, including me. He often travels halfway through the world to spend time with the gurus, which has helped his self-transcendence-related practices.

His occupational background means the gurus and their practices (even, as we read further into the book, his fellow scientist) are not exempt from close scrutiny. Being aware that the spirituality world is prone to abuse (the scheme of enlightenment programs that begs you for more and more money as you become closer to reach the final stage of enlightenment is not an alien concept, at least in this part of world that I’m living), Harris does not hesitate to reveal the dark side of enlightenment. He is also constantly critical of the various methods, pointing out the shortfalls and recognizing the fact that there are no perfect gurus or methods, only better ones (spoiler: Dzongchen is one of his favorites). Fortunately, according to him, the impossibility of attaining perfect enlightenment does not translate to futility - we can reap the benefits even just by trying.

Lastly, Harris talks about substance use. He mentions that the use of certain substances, in particular psychedelics, is ethically neutral - I am of the same opinion. He believes that it can show (not tell) you things you otherwise are unable to see/feel/experience, but it can also send you to a bottomless pit of despair. Unprecedented magic vs a full-blown, terror-filled psychosis. Their huge benefits do not mean that everybody should try them:

I have two daughters who will one day take drugs. Of course, I will do everything in my power to see that they choose their drugs wisely, but a life lived entirely without drugs is neither foreseeable nor, I think, desirable. I hope they someday enjoy a morning cup of tea or coffee as much as I do. If they drink alcohol as adults, as they probably will, I will encourage them to do it safely. If they choose to smoke marijuana, I will urge moderation. Tobacco should be shunned, and I will do everything within the bounds of decent parenting to steer them away from it. Needless to say, if I knew that either of my daughters would eventually develop a fondness for methamphetamine or heroin, I might never sleep again. But if they don’t try a psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD at least once in their adult lives, I will wonder whether they had missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience.

I highly recommend the book, I think the topic of spirituality is never an easy one and often emotionally loaded. To glimpse it through the eyes of a rather wise neuroscientist helps make it a detailed and precise introduction to spirituality, detached but not cold. It is not a sin to want to believe in something more than the physical world - but it is better to do it in a way that is further from a comforting illusion. It is true that some negative emotions are often our brain’s way to tell us to solve problems or deal with certain situations, but we can try proceed to go for the solution without being accompanied by the unpleasant reminder. My friend might have to come to terms with his grandmother’s death, but he does not have to trick himself into believing that she is in a safer place now. Sam Harris might say that she simply ceases to be. Call me lazy or cowardly or skeptical or trying to play it safe, but for me it remains unchanged that I simply do not know.

PS: I also recommend this article from Big Think: http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/4-things-you-can-do-to-cheer-up-according-to-neuroscience